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DEFENCE OF THE PEOPLE, 



IN 



REPLY 



TO 



LORD ERSKINE'S 

"TWO DEFENCES OF THE WHIGS." 



BY 

v 



^tH^j^^^'^"^ ^ HOBHOUSE, Esg. F.R.S 






*% <L >< But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs, 
i " Rome and her Rats are at the point of battle." 

CoRioLANus, Act I. Scene L 



C/J LOl^DON: 

PUBLLSHED BY ROBERT STODART, 81; STRAND. 
1819. 



•4>Vi<; 



o1 



.5 



^V% 



John M'Creery, Printer, 
Black-Horse-Court, London. 



A 

LETTER 



TO 



LORD ERSKINE, fcc. 



My Lord, 

I AM one of the deluded multitude who have 
been in the habit of devoting the hours they 
can spare from their low pursuits to the consi- 
deration of public events and public men. My 
first interference in politics was unaspiring, 
though zealous. — It became the mean condition 
and the headstrong nature of one belonging to 
the lotver orders, and your Lordship will hardly 
object to the direction then given to my vulgar 
patriotism. 

It was on the 9th of November, 1794, that I 
harnessed myself to the carriage of the Honour- 
able Thomas Erskine, when that distinguished 
barrister was drawn through the streets of the 

B 



metropolis, amidst the blessings and the tears 
of a people whom he had saved from the gripe 
of oppression. Your Lordship does not praise 
yourself half enough for the exploits of those 
days.— It is but a poor description of them to 
say, '^ that you saved your Brother-reformers 
from being hanged.'* The English, then, had 
but one hope left. Their parliament, instead 
of protecting them, lent aid to the tyrants that 
conspired their destruction. Nothing remained 
but to frighten or corrupt the tribunal which 
held the sword over those whom their mock re- 
presentfitives had delivered bound hand and foot 
to the bloody servants of the crown. A com- 
plaisant jury would have completed the work of 
a treacherous parliament. It was not the exist- 
ence of Hardy which was at stake. If you had 
often before fought for victory in this cause, you 
then contended for the life of our British liber- 
ties. No time, no, nor your Lordship's subse- 
quent conduct, shall obliterate your share in the 
glorious struggle that gave a breathing-time to 
the last defenders of their country. The con- 
gratulations belonged to the rescued prisoner, 
but the praise was all your own ; — you were the 
saviour of the innocent, the restorer of liberty, 
the champion of law, of justice, and of truth. 
Dazzled by your eloquence — animated by your 
courage — sympathizing with your success — ^your 
fellow-countrymen sunk under their admiration. 



their gratitude, and their joy; and bowed dowii 
before the idol of their hearts. 

My Lord, you should have died when you 
descended from the triumph of that memorable 
day. The timely end, which is the sole pro- 
tection against the reverses of fortune, would 
have preserved you from that more lamentable 
change, which could have been occasioned only 
by yourself. Had your life closed with the pro- 
cession, you would have gone down to posterity 
pure and entire. As it is, your admirers have 
nothing left for it, but to separate your early 
career from your present state, and to look at 
the record of your former exploits as belonging 
rather to history than to you. 

Your Lordship has, I know, companions in this 
transformation. It was, doubtless, in another 
body that the soul of the present opposition leader 
incited the electors of South wark to vote, not for 
George Tierney, hut for Beform j and, I presume, 
that the author of the *^ Vindiciae Gallicae** looks 
upon that spirited performance much in the same 
way as the philosopher of old recognized the 
buckler, which, in his former state of existence, 
he had fought with at the Trojan war. 

But however your Lordship may cast into the 
shade your former conduct and principles, they 
are still public property; nor can the ermine 
of the chancellor and the peer be drawn so 
tightly about you, as effectually to hide the 

B 2 



noble proportions and natural graces of the 
advocate. The gratitude of the people, like the 
vengeance of the king, knows no lapse ; and if 
they are not now chained to your chariot, it is 
merely because your Lordship seems at present 
somewhat inclined to twist the traces round 
their necks. If we complain of you, it shall be 
Jn such a sort as shews we do not forget what 
you once were : and if we point to your former 
character and career when you were the idol of 
the multitude, we shall not, assuredly, awaken 
any disagreeable recollections. The excesses 
were graceful — they became your time of life, 
and the portrait of them will, perhaps, as Lord 
Rochester says : — 

" Please the ghost of your departed vice." 

And, indeed, we have reason to complain, — 
Tvhy could not your Lordship lie quiet? what, in 
the name of your former fame ! what sent you 
simpling at this hour into the field of politics ? 
And, if you would write against your old ad- 
mirers, why not keep your secret? Why let it 
peep out like the silken-string of some new made 
knight, ill concealed at first, then still farther 
shown, and, at last, as vanity throws open button 
after button, displayed in full ridicule to the con- 
fusion of every friend, and the pity of every foe. 
And so your Lordship is really the author of 
" A short Defence of the Whigs against the Im- 



putations attempted to he cast upon them during the 
lust Election for Westminster.'' 

We of the rabble have not had Cobbett^s 
grammar amongst us long enough to be very 
nice about language ; but, methinks, your 
Lordship, in endeavouring to weaken the above 
imputations^ has only v^eakened your ow^n title- 
page: for the imputations were cast upon the 
Whigs : the attempt was not to cast them — the 
attempt was to make them stick : yoxx might as 
well have said, " A Defence of Lord Sefton and 
of Lord William Russell, against the mud at- 
tempted to be cast at them." I do not think 
your Lordship is good at a title; let us see 
whether or not you are more successful, at what 
Goldsmith calls, '' working off the body of the 
book/' 

One of my brethren has already made " A 
Reply to your Defence"— he has hit again 
— he has no doubt added to the crimes of the 
people, and given your Lordship a fresh proof 
of the existence of that " organized and persever- 
ing system of detractions'^ of which you so feel- 
ingly complain. 

We ar« waiting for an answer to this Reply ; 
you tell us, that you have " set an example of a 
system of defence." You hint, that you have 
vigorously " repelled former calumnies on the 

* Defence, &c. p. 24. 



Whigs." A fresh demand is made upon your 
vigour ; as you have begun, you must go on : 
the self-elected champion of the party must not 
fling away his buckler at the first blow. 

In the meantime, I shall take leave to remark 
upon such portions of your Defence as the re- 
plyer, being occupied upon the main argument, 
has left for others of the body of organized de- 
tractors^ and if, in the course of the discussion, 
your own frailties, and those of your friends, 
should be exposed, I beg you to recollect, that 
it is not I that have drawn them from their dread 
abode — your Lordship has been the voluntary 
magician who has stepped forth to scare us with 
the spectre of another Whig apostate. 

According to your Defence, Mr. Hobhouse, 
supported by Sir F. Burdett, has attempted to 
expose the Whigs *' as a corrupt and profligate 
factioriy^ apostates from the cause of Reform, 
which they had once sole mnh/ pledged themselves to 
support— or, " to speak plainly,^' has, so you say, 
endeavoured to prove " that a Whig might now he 
considered as a term of ridicule or reproach.^* 

I have looked over Mr. Hobhouse's speeches — 
I have looked over Sir F. Burdett's speeches, at 
the late Election, and 1 no where find that either 
of those gentlemen called the Whigs a corrupt 
and profligate faction. I dare say they thought 
so; but they appear never to have used the 
\sords. — "Arrogant," "overbearing" — "selfish," 



I 



" false/' « boasting/' " interested," '' tricky," 
" mean," « shallow," '' deceitful," " jealous," 
and ** impotent," were, it seems, epithets applied 
to your Lordship's friends more than once, and 
which seemed to tickle the fancies of the audi- 
ence — That they were, some of them, abettors 
of the corruptions of Parliament, was also hinted 
at — but I know not that in a body they were 
ever designated by either the candidate or Sir 
F. B. as a corrupt and profligate faction. Your 
Lordship knows the value of words, and should 
therefore be exact in your references — But had 
the words been used, the inference — the " plain 
inference," as you call it, is not a little over- 
strained. — If the Whigs were *^ corrupt and pro- 
fligate," the word Whig would not therefore be 
a term of *' ridicule." — God knows that the party 
have done mischief too serious to be the occasion 
of a jest — corruption and profligacy are no 
laughing matters to the people — the people do 
not laugh at them — but the Whigs do. 

But your Lordship is not the first honest man 
who has been afraid of being laughed at, and it 
should seem that self-conviction has told you 
that there is something ludicrous in the present 
position of the Whigs : as a body they are too 
odious to be matter of joke 3 but the siliy figure 
made by some individual^ of the party at the 
last Election may justify your apprehension. 

Indeed, my Lord ! you cannot imagine any 
thing quite so ridiculous as the daily appearance 



of the natural leaders y (as your Whig journal 
calls them) in the face of their natural followers — 
A downright, open, impudent, ministerial candi- 
date, backed by the consciousness that his double 
pots and pay will reward him for the terrors of 
the Hustings, and undauntedly struggling with 
the storms of unpopularity, is a spectacle not 
altogether unworthy the imitation of a certain 
class of men, and such as the gods of Downing- 
Street may view with rapture. — ^But had you seen, 
and had you heard the Whigs at Covent Garden — 
had you seen and heard the representatives of 
their noble houses — had you seen or heard the 
honourable proposer of the candidate, the pride 
of the opposition — had you seen and heard the 
honourable candidate himself — all of them smil- 
ing, and bowing, and sweating before the people — 
wishing to convince them that they loved them, 
and were beloved by them — averring that they 
belonged to those who had all along done them 
so much good, and who would do them so much 
good again — protesting that they desired nothing 
but the liberty and happiness of their friends and 
fellow citizens — that they did not care about 
themselves — but were always devoted to the 
people only, and to the cause of freedom and 
revolution. — Had you, I say, my Lord ! seen 
and heard all this professed courtship and affec- 
tion, and had witnessed how they were received — 
What hootings — what taunts — what laughter fol- 
lowed upon every profession of former faith— 



9 

upon every promise of future constancy — indeed 
you would have doubted your senses — never were 
benefactors, friends, lovers, reduced to so piteous 
a pleading of their past services and their present 
passion.^— When the brother of one great family 
stept forward to show, as we supposed, how it was 
expected that the admirers and tenants of his 
house should vote, and to tell of ancient merits, 
you would have been reminded of the old beau 
Fielding, who, when his mistress was inexorable, 
as a last resource, uncovered his bosom, and dis- 
played an ugly scar. — The people, like the lady, 
preposterously laughed and mocked the veteran 
suitor — Indeed his Lordship furnished an inimi- 
table addition to Swift's ^^ Mean Figures." — Had 
you still further heard the candidate protesting 
to the last, that in spite of the hootings of thou- 
sands, he was the only true love of all — that he 
vv^as opposed only b}'- a hired few, whose retreat 
would leave him the undisputed applauses of the 
rational world. — Had you heard this modest con- 
fession cheered by the little knot around him, 
and by the unboiight voices of the Prize-fighters 
beneath him — and at the same time half-drowned 
by the scornful shouts and denials of the vast 
multitude — had you heard this unaccountable 
rejection of the Whig addresses by those whom 
they have served and saved, and still will serve 
and save, your Lordship might have shuddered at 
such blindness and ingratitude j but you would. 



10 



you must have smiled at the strange equivocal 
appearance of the unfortunate suitors for popular 
favor. 

Moreover— had your Lordship seen your ho- 
nourable candidate, as I protest I saw him, 
bowing complacently to Mr. Hunt^ and speaking 
from the same board — had you seen all your 
honourable and right honourable friends ranging 
in a line and confused in a body, with Mr. Gale 
Jones and the above gentleman, together v/ith 
the band of bludgeon patriots — had you heard 
the mutual civilities, and readv fraternization of 
the concordant souls, united in their opposition 
to Mr. Hobhouse, and in their hatred of Sir F. 
Burdett — united in the hissings and revilings 
which were impartially bestowed by the whole 
body of the people upon them all — this sight 
might, indeed, have recalled you to the better 
and brighter days of your party — I do not know 
whether your Lordship would have laughed at 
this — I do not know whether you would have 
been pleased to see the reporter of your own forty 
years' friend Mr. Perry, as he was seen, prompt- 
ing Mr. Hunt, and regulating the movements of 
the ruffians hired to make a show of popularity — 
but I know that I felt no malicious delight in 
seeing the Whigs so degraded, so lost and utterly 
abandoned. 

However, your Lordship thinks, your Lord- 
ship feels, that Whig is become a term of ridi- 



11 

cule. — It is so— not, however, from any thing 
said by the Reformers— but from every thing 
said and done by the Whigs themselves. 

Besides— do look at the Whigs — the scorn and 
laughter of a House of Commons, of which the 
very door-keepers complain. — ^Your Lordship 
must not think yourself amongst your old friends 
and coadjutors. — Indeed, you must forgive me if 
I tell you, that I really thought you yourself 
had left the Whigs, and that I suspect you are 
generously appearing as the champion of those 
of whom you know little or nothing — I thought 
that the Whigs had pronounced that a weak 
lawyer had gone astray, and in mercy had attri- 
buted the wandering to his " stars.'' — 1 thought 
that your Lordship had repaid the joke by an 
equivalent, and had declared your ancient co- 
partners and brothers in exile from the court, just 
as impracticable and uncompromising, as they are 
pleased to charge the Reformers with being. 

Surely I cannot be mistaken as to the indi- 
vidual; and if I am not mistaken, either your 
Lordship, or the opposition, cannot be Whigs; 
or Sir F. Burdett was quite right in saying that 
no one knows who the Whigs are, or what their 
principles are. No small portion of the merit of 
the opposition, as stated by themselves, is their 
disinterestedness in making no sacrifices for the 
sake of court-favor. Your Lordship is not so 
enamoured of martyrdom. 



12 

Your Lordship says, that if a Whig is now 
to be considered a term of ridicule or reproach, 
we shall " cast into the shade Xhe character of the 
Revolution itself y Not at all — you might as well 
say, " if you laugh at Lord Erskine's green 
ribbon, you cannot have any respect for Mr. 
Erskine's defence of Hardy.*' 

Besides, your Lordship must see the extreme 
absurdity of supposing that a nation will allow 
itself not to judge of men as to their contem- 
porary conduct, but as the mere representatives 
of those who lived and acted well a century ago. 

Perhaps I may not be so great an admirer of 
the chief actors in the Revolution of 1688 as 
your Lordship; but, supposing me to be so, do 
you think that I shall join with you in gazing 
with delight on those, who instead of planting 
and reaping the laurels of patriotism for them- 
selves, snatch the ready made garlands which 
hang on the bier of the heroes of the Revolution, 
and attach them to their own unhonoured 
brows ? 

I tell your Lordship, that the Whigs are 
always dealing out names * — ^you have done so 

* It is an old, a favorite Whig trick — in early times the 
Whigs were always playing off the word Liberty. Thus Sir 
R. Steele endeavoured, says Swift, to impress upon his reader 
such weighty truths as these : — That liberty is a very good 
thing ; that ivithout liberty we cannot be free : that health is good, 
and strength is good; but liberty is better than either: that no man 



13 

yourself, whether Whig or not. It is impossible 
to collect from your Defence of the Whigs, what 
Whigs you mean to defend, they ought to be 
certainly the Whigs who were attacked — but 
your Defence leaves the persons uncertain. — 
Was the Whig to whom you alluded, one who 
takes an honor or refuses it ? Was he one who 
" rides rough shod through Carlton House,'* or 
one who seats himself in loyal shoe leather at 
the dinner table ? Was he one who flatters his 
Prince, or one who defames him ? — Are your 
Whigs the Whigs who flourished at the West- 
minster Election in 1819, or the Whigs who 
figured in the Revolution of 1688? — Were they 
the Whigs, who, as your Lordship tells us,* 
were accused by others of their own body as Repub- 
licanSy zvho sought to introduce anarchy by over- 
shadowing the sober and regulated character of our 
own Revolution ,• " or were they the Whigs, who, 
as your Lordship does in this very Pamphlet, 
accuse the Reformers of neither more nor less 
than this very crime ? — Were they Foxites, Fitz- 
williamites, or Tierneyites ? — Were they old or 

can he happy ivithout the liberty of doing whatever his own mind 
tells him is best : that men of quality love liberty, and common 
people love liberty. See " The Pubhc Spirit of the Whigs/' 
Surely a Newcastle orator could not have talked more pro- 
foundly ; it was, is, and ever will be the true language of a 
GENTLEMAN BORN, as poor Dick Stcclc Called hinaself 

♦ Defence, &c. p. 8. 



14 

new Whigs ? friends of revolution, or decriers 
of revolution? radical Reformers — moderate Re- 
formers — or no Reformers ? — Friends of the 
people, and seceders from the parliament; or 
haters of the people, and flatterers of the par- 
liament ? All these after their kind are mentioned 
and praised, and it is impossible to know whom 
you would particularly defend, unless your 
Lordship is pleased with the agreeable variety, 
and would defend them all. — In fact it is the 
name Whig which you like, and which you would 
wish us to like; — it is the name revolution which 
you hold up to us, and which you could wish us 
always to think of as a name and nothing else; 
the pretext of the party for doing nothing, the 
plaything of the people to keep them from com- 
plaining that nothing is done. * 

It is, my Lord, notorious that the Whigs have 
at different times attached different ideas to this 
their favorite word. — They of the late Westmin- 
ster election made use of it as a catch-word 
against the Reformers. The Foxites of 1793 
and 1797 associated it to their radical reform. 
In those days the high prerogative writers and 
talkers reminded the Whigs " that their famous '* 
Revolution was but a mere name^ and so far 

* " The more revglutions the better," said a great Whig ; 
and the girl at Bartholomew Fair, who got a penny for turn- 
ing round a hundred times, said the same thing no doubt. — 
See the Examiner, No. 39. 



15 

from bringing about any material change of 
system, was in fact nothing but the preservation 
and solemn recognition of the hereditary monarchy 
of this Realm, and of all its ancient laws and 
government.^'' — The author of the Pursuits of 
Literature, a book now almost as much forgotten 
and laid aside as the Whig principles of 1798, 
ventured from his obscurity to whisper this asser- 
tion into the ear of Mr. Fox. Whether or not 
he was altogether borne out in his statement, is 
a question not connected with our present dis- 
cussion ; but it may be of use to remind your 
Lordship, that we of the people do not agree 
with you who are descended from the Stuarts f 
in thinking that the particular portion of the 
Revolution which is most to be admired, is that 
in v*^hich there was no revolution. — And that if 
you delight to behold in that event the prudence 
with which old institutions were preserved, we 
are rather pleased with the courage with which 
new amendments were hazarded. — You say, 
" our ancestors, at that period, were well aware 
" of the full right of the people to have resettled 
f* the whole frame of their Constitution ; but 
^* they were wise enough to leave every thing 
" untouched, which in principle and effect had 
^^ not failed, and to provide only for the emer- 

* Preface to Dialogue iv. of Pursuits of Literature, 
t " My ancestors though of the Stuart family, &c." Pre- 
face, p.vi. 



16 

" gency of a vacant or forfeited throne ^ by 
'' adhering as closely to ancient inheritance as 
" the security ot the constitution would admit. 
" An alleged defect in this great work, so often 
" in the mouths of Revolutionists, [meaning us, 
" my Lord,] the sober-minded Whigs, [meaning 
^' your Lordship and Company^] consider as 
" decisively characteristic of its wisdom. The 
'* people at large were not called upon to act 
" for themselves, as if the whole frame of the 
" ancient government had been dissolved.; but 
'^ writs were sent to the convention parliament 
" to supply the single defect which had taken 
" place.'' * 

Such are your Lordship's words, and I would 
beg you to remark how exceedingly well they 
tally with those which I have just before quoted 
from the poor terrified enthusiast who pelted 
your Lordship, in poetry and prose, with Latin, 
Greek, and English, for " the flimsy and puerile 
View of the causes and consequences of the 
present French war; '' and told you " not to call 
those slaves, and the sons of slaves, who were 
better men, and descended from better men, 
than yourself" | 

* Defence, &c. 

t The Pursuer of literature quoted Demosthenes, which 
came, as he thought, pat to his purpose, although he did not 
think Mr. BarristerErskine quite such a *[ being as Androtion" 
P. of L. dialogue, iv. 



17 

Permit me, however, since I am on this sub- 
ject, to express my astonishment that your 
Lordship should venture to give such an histo- 
rical picture of the Revolution, as I find in the 
assertion, that this Revolution was happily not 
effected by an indignant and enraged multitude, 
but " was slowly prepared by the most virtuous 
*' and best informed amongst the higher and 
'^ enlightened classes of the people, who took 
** prudent and effectual steps for securing its 
" success without bloodshed, being confident of 
" the support of a vast majority of the people." 

Notwithstanding all this slow preparation on 
the part of the virtuous and well informed Whig 
nobility, it is pretty certain that the Revolution 
was finally brought about by the desertion of the 
army, which was not contemplated beforehand, 
but occurred unexpectedly ; but most of all, by 
the King's flight. — Even ^^Lerol Urol lilihuleroV^ 
had perhaps as much to do with the change, as 
any or all of the Whigs put together.* I am wil- 
ling to believe that it was some better motive 
than the wish to play at double or quits with 
king James for his 10,000/., that made the Earl 
of Devonshire join in the invitation to William; 
but whatever were the motives of the higher and 
enlightened classes, it is not entirely to them, 
that an eye-witness ascribes the completion of 

♦ See Burnet's History, &c, vol. ii. p« 535. 
C 



18 

the Revolution. Bishop Burnet tells us, that even 
when the Prince of Orange first landed, he remain- 
ed eight days at Exeter, without being joined by 
any of the neighbouring gentry -, but that those 
of my own class, " THE RABBLE of the people came 
in to him in great numbers, ^^^ This they did, like 
true rabble, in the day of doubts and danger, and 
before the army of King James had revolted. — 
The same author has another record to the honor 
and glory of the same portion of the King's sub- 
jects, for he tells us, that in the greatest emer- 
gency of the state, when two years after the 
Revolution, the restoration of king James was 
by no means improbable, the French being 
masters of the sea, and England being def<&nded 
by only 7000 regular troops, the Jacobites were 
prevented from making any head, and *^ all 
England over were kept out of the way, afraid 
of being fallen upon by the RABBLE.^f Though 
it was harvest time, the people expressed more 
zeal and affection for the new governmeut, than 
care for their own subsistence. 

The Rabble had much greater share in con- 
firming the Revolution, such as it occurred^ than 
your Lordship seems to be aware ; and as to the 
" single defecty' to supply which, the ancestors 
of your Lordship, and of your Lordship's friends^ 

* Burnet, as above. 

t Burnet's History, &c. vol. iii. p. 75. 



19 

prepared, as you say, the Revolution. I must 
repeat my astonishment at such an assertion from 
a man^who though in his youngerdays he modestly 
confessed he had ?wt the talents of a Statesmariy* 
must still be expected to be tolerably acquainted 
with history. It was not the single defect of a 
vacant throne, that brought about the invitation 
of William Prince of Orange. The throne was not 
vacant, it was not at all intended that the throne 
should be declared vacant ; the only point to be 
considered relative to the throne, was the birth 
of the Prince of Wales. — I refer you to the De- 
claration which the Prince of Orange signed and 
sealed on the 10th of October, and published on 
his landing. — A single defect indeed ! *^ What 
did the declaration set forth ? all the numerous 
violations of the laws of England, both as to 
religion, civil government, and the administra- 
tion of justice; the invasion of the right of 
petitioning, and particularly the packing of Par- 
liaments, — these cannot be called a single defect^ 
nor was the change of dynasty the remedy pro- 
posed. " The States of the United Provinces 
said the truth, when they affirmed that the King 
was not gone to England on design to dethrone 
the late King."f — No 1 The Prince of Orange 

♦ See P. of L. dialogue iv. and " View of the Causes and 
Consequences of the present French war." 

t King Wiliianv III. Memorial, &c. Somers*s Tracts, vol. 
xi. p. 107. 

C 21 



20 

might indeed look for an eventual Crown for his 
wife, in case king James's son was set aside, but 
the proper and effectual remedy which he pro- 
posed for redressing the growing evils, was a 
Parliament that would be lawfully chosen, and 
should sit in full freedom.* 

I am willing to grant to your Lordship the 
fact, that it did not come into action, at the 
Revolution, to re-model the frame and constitution 
of Parliament ; but I think I have said enough 
to show, that the multiplied defects of misgovern- 
ment, (not the single defect) were to be remedied 
by an uninfluenced parliament. Let me add, 
that King William, after having obtained the 
Crown, did make it his boast, that he had called 
together a free and fair Parliament, without the 
least interference in elections. j* — I have learnt 
from Lord Grey, " that one of the principles 
asserted at the Revolution, was, that a man ought 
not to be governed by laws in the framing of 
which he had not a voice, either in person or 
by his representative.":!: 

* The 16th, 19th, and 20th, paragraphs of the Prince of 
Orange's Declaration all refer to the Free Parliament, which 
was to remedy every thing. See the Jacobite Answer to this 
Declaration, published when the Prince landed. See Somers's 
Tracts, vol. ix. p. 286. 

t Seethe above cited Memorial. Somers's Tracts, vol. xi. 
p. 107. 

t Pari. Debates, 1793, May 6tb. 



Your Lordship gives as a reason for this non- 
reform at the Revolution, that *' the Crown had 
not then originated the system, nor acquired the 
means of a corrupt influence in the House of 
Commons."* 

Here I must remark, that supposing your 
assertion to be true, you throw all the odium of 
the corruption on the Whigs, who were acknow- 
ledgedly the masters for so large a portion of the 
70 years following the Revolution; and supposing 
it to be true, you also prove nothing against 
Reform, by saying it was not resorted to at the 
Revolution, as you tell us that the evil which 
Reform is to remedy has arisen since the Revo- 
lution. 

But your Lordship goes too far in saying, that 
Parliamentary Reform did not come even into 
view at the Revolution. It would have been 
strange, indeed, if the great Borough- proprie- 
tors, concerned in the Revolution, had sacri- 
ficed the very means by which they hoped to 
hold the King in their power ; and, according- 
ly, we do not hear of the first, or either of the 
early ministries of William 111. having resorted 
to any measure, by which the control of the 
People could be increased, and organized, and 
secured, and the influence of the aristocracy 
diminished and reduced to its due bounds. Had 

* Defence, &c. p. 5. 



n 

the Devonshires and the Danbys done this, in- 
stead of heaping honours and emoluments upon 
their own houses, the worthy Mr. Walter Fawkes 
would not have been able to say, that the 
Revolution was a bill of fare, without a feast.* 

But though these great Whigs kept Parlia- 
mentary Reform out of view as much as they 
could, yet it was in view ; and your Lordship is 
quite wrong in saying, that the system of par- 
liamentary corruption was unknown at the Re- 
volution. It was known, and it was felt; and, 
as I said before, it was the PACKING of parlia- 
ments of which the revolutionists chiefly com- 
plained, and it was the convoking of a free re- 
presentation of the people which was the great 
object, I may say, the only avowed object of 
the friends of William, and of William himself. 
The Duke of Monmouth may have been sup- 
posed to know what would tempt the people, 
and he promised them the annual election of 
their representatives, f 

* Amongst other unfurnished items in this bill, was the 
abolition of ex-officio informations. 

t " Our resolution in the next place is, to maintain all the 
" just rights and privileges of Parliament, and to have par- 
" liaments annually chosen and held, and not prorogued, 
'' dissolved, or discontinued, within the year, before peti- 
" tions be first answered, and grievances redressed.*' See 
« State Trials,'* vol. ii. p. 1032, and note ; also Ralph's " His- 
tory," vol. i. p. 873, which says, " Monmouth's sudden and 
surprising success must be attributed to his declaration." Mr. 



h 



23 

I will confessj with your Lordship, that we 
do owe the complete and admirably organized 
corruption of the House of Commons to the 
Whigs who reigned for so long, in the name and 
on the behalf of the first sovereigns of the new 
dynasty, (for it is nonsense talking about the 
CROWN originating the system) : but there 
was such a thing as bribing^ and threatening, 
and treating voters, before the said Whigs began 
to shew, that, however the honour of the inven- 
tion might belong to others, the utility of the full 
application was reserved for their own happy 
genius. Indeed, the influencing of voters was 
so notorious, and had arrived at such a pitch in 
the reigns of the two last Stuarts, that a Jacobite 
writer, before quoted, speaks of a truly free 
parliament as a chimera ; for by money , drink, or 
power y elections had ever suffered an ill by ass upon 
them,* 

Hume, indeed, finds it " chiefly calculated to suit the preju- 
dices of the vulgar, or the most bigotted of the Whig party ;" 
but Mr. Fox in pointing out the faults of the Declaration, 
(History, p. 371), does not mention the resolution to have 
Annual Parliaments. I am aware that Reresby (pp. 202, 203,) 
interprets " chosen and held," by the word sii. 

• See the Reply to the Declaration of the Prince of Orange. 
Somers's Tracts as above. Vol. ix. p. 286, edit. Scott. 

" This was so true, that even Charles and James when the 
" Commons were risen, were driven to the garbling of Cor- 
" porations." — Mr. Erskine's Speech on Mr, Gre/s Motion for 
Parliamentary Reform, 1793. 



24 

Now, this recognized evil, as well as a wish 
prevalent amongst many politicians, to extend 
to the utmost the control of the people over the 
affairs of government, had brought a Reform of 
Parliament into the view of manv of those con- 
cerned in the Revolution : and one of the com- 
plaints, made at a very early period against the 
iirst ministers of King William, was, that they 
had done nothing towards securing the due influ- 
ence and control of the People, in the choice of 
their representatives. It is true, as Lord Boling- 
broke confesses, that ^^ the frequency ^ integrity^ 
and independency of Parliament, the essentials of 
British liberty, were almost wholly neglected at the 
Revolution'*^ That nobleman, indeed, looked 
upon this neglect in a very different light from 
your Lordship. — He thought it a misfortune: 
you notice it amongst the praises of the Revolu- 
tion. But the same author mentions a fact of 
which your Lordship is, or affects to be, wholly 
ignorant, namely, that, " soon after the Revolu- 
" tion, men of all sides, and all denominations, 
" (for it was not a party-measure, though it was 
** endeavoured to be made such) began to per- 
" ceive not only that nothing effectual had been 
" done to hinder the undue influence of the 
" Crown in elections, and an over-balance of 
" the creatures of the court in parliament, but 
^V that the means of exercising such an influence, 

♦ Dissertation on Parties, Letter xi, 



25 

" at the will of the Crown, were unawares 
" and insensibly increased, and every day in- 
" creasing.** Lord B. adds, that the great body 
of the nation then discovered that bv this event, 
namely, the settlement of the nation at the Re- 
volution without the necessary provision in 
favour of free parliaments, the foundations were 
laid of establishing universal corruption.* The 
declaration of Rights by the convention had said, 
that elections of members of parliament ought 
to be free ; f " but that this right was not more 
" than claimed, that they were not effectually 
" asserted, and secured, at this time, gave,** 
says the same writer, " very great and im- 
" mediate dissatisfaction, and some, who were 
" called Whigs, in those days, distinguished 
" themselves by the loudness of their com- 
*' plaints.** X These Whigs were not, perhaps, 
those Stuart ancestors of your Lordship, who 
supported the Revolution : but they were men 
of some name and authority. Mr. Hampden, 
for instance, insisted *' that there could be no real 
" settlement, nay, that it was a jest to talk of settle- 
" ment, till the manner and time of calling par- 
" liaments, and their sitting when called, were 
" fully determined; and this, in order to prevent 



♦ Dissertation on Parties, Letter xviii. 
t See Parliamentary Debates, A. 1688. 
t Letter xi. 



^^6 



** the practice of keeping one and the same par- 
" liament long on foot, till the majority was 
"corrupted by offices, gifts, and pensions.*'* 
Mr. Johnson, chaplain to Lord Russel, asserted, 
that one line, settling and securing a fair and free 
House of Commons, would have been worth all 
the Bill of Rights. But, lest your Lordship 
should say, these were mere moderate reformers, 
(although, be it recollected, you have forgotten 
there were any reformers at all at the Revolution) 
let me add, that the complainants insisted, that 
** the assurances given at the Revolution had led 
" them to think that the ANCIENT LEGAL COURSE 
" of ANNUALLY CHOSEN PARLIAMENTS f would 
** have been immediately restored ; and the par- 
" ticular circumstances of King William, who 
" had received the crown by gift of the people, 
** and who had renewed the original contract 
" with the people (which are precisely the cir- 
" cumstances of the present royal family) were 
" urged as particular reasons for the nation to 
" expect his compliance." So you see, my 
Lord, that Parliamentary Reform, Radical Par- 
liamentary Reform, a Reform, which should 
make the House of Commons emanate solely 



• See " Considerations concerning the State of the Nation," 
pubhshed in 1692, referred to in Letter xi. 

t See An Enquiry or a Discourse, published in 1693, and 
quoted in Letter xi. 



27 

from the People, and be chosen every year, was 
in view of the contemporaries of the Revolution, 
and was expected to have been obtained, owing 
to the ASSURANCES given by the managers of the 
Revolution. The patriots, or if you please, the 
complainants, of that day, soon found that the 
frequent sitting of parliament had been provided 
for, and that Annual Sessions had been found 
necessary for the sake of raising annual supplies. 
But the " ancient legal course of annually chosen 
parliaments'* was so far from being established, 
that on the contrary it soon was established by 
law, that the king might keep the same parlia- 
ment together for three years. 

I fear indeed that your Lordship's Stuart an- 
cestors had not only a great deal to do, but a 
great deal too much to do with the Revolution : 
and that they were partly employed in keeping 
out of view that which a large body of the nation 
had in view y that is, the solemn establishment 
of a representation of the people, fully, fairly, 
freely and frequently chosen. — It is known that 
the views of some of those who acted in the 
Revolution extended even so far as a Republic. 
There were at least two plans for erecting a 
Commonwealth openly published, whilst the 
settlement of the Crown was uncertain — They 
are reprinted, with due animadversions on their 
exceeding and monstrous folly, by Mr. Walter 
Scott, in his edition of Lord Somers*s Tracts. — 



28 

Burnet owns that there were some in the Con- 
vention who wished " to raise the power of the 
people on the ruin of the monarchy."* — Major 
Wildeman, who came over with the Prince of 
Orange, was an old Republican, and there were 
many in parliament who opposed the limitation 
against a Popish successor, solely with the hope 
of restoring the Commonwealth after the death 
of William. — The managers, however, chose 
to content themselves with declarations — those 
pompous trifles, which Bolingbroke decries, and 
which, though they satisfy your Lordship and 
many of your contemporaries, were, as I have 
before mentioned, soon exposed by the com- 
plainants of '^ all orders and all denominations,** 
immediately after the Revolution. 

My Lord, you are surely wrong in this 
point — nor must you shelter yourself behind 
your expression — '' A Reform in the original 
frame and constitution of Parliament,**! because 
the complainants made not use of the word 
Reform, perhaps, but on the contrary, desired 
a Restoration of what they thought this original 
frame and constitution. — Equally unaccountable 
is it, that you should ascribe this neglect in the 
settlement of the nation to the fact, that " the 
House of Commons under its ancient forms had 

* History, Book IV. 
t Defence, &c. p. 4, 



29 

recently obtained the full confidence of the 
people by the renovation of the Constitution."* 
Such neglect may be ascribed to any other 
cause — Bolingbroke presumes that the great fear 
being that of prerogative, prevented the consi- 
deration of the greater danger, namely, undue 
influence. But I think it would be charitable to 
help the Whigs to a reason, which, however, 
may be partly unpalatable — to wit — that the 
Revolution of 1688 was notoriously the work 
partly of the Tories, as well as of the Whigs. — 
It surely would have been in character, if you 
as a defender of the Whig faith and so forth, had 
adopted the division usual with your party, and 
if you had reluctantly owned that the glorious 
Revolution was not the sole work of the Whigs, 
and had fearlessly proclaimed that all the good of 
that great work must be claimed for the Whigs, 
whilst all the evil, all the sins of omission or 
commission, must of right be attributed to the 
Tories. — Why did not your Lordship throw all 
the blame on those distinguished Tories, some of 
whom carried highest the doctrines of Passive Obe- 
dience and Non*Resistance, and were engaged in 
it.\ 

* Defence, &c. p. 5. 

t Dissertation on Parties, Letter VII. See also further ii| 
Letter VIII. 

" There was a party that concurred in making the new 
" settlement ; a party that prevailed in Parliament, and was 



80 

The formation of the first ministry distinctly 
shows that the Whigs alone were not those who 
found favor in the eyes of King William — Lord 
Halifax was no Whig-— still less was Lord Not- 
tingham a Whig. — Indeed the King's first mi- 
nistry, so far from being composed of those pa- 
triots which your Lordsdip would make us be- 
lieve the framers of the Revolution settlement to 
have been, were much like other ministers ; and 
Sir Charles Sedley proclaimed that his Majesty, 
whatever were his private inclinations, was en- 
compassed and hemmed in by a company of crafty 
old Courtiers J^ 

The Whigs lost the good opinion of King 
William before he had been a year on the 
throne — " by the heat," says Burnet, " that 
they showed in both Houses against their ene- 

" by much the majority of the nation out of it. — Were the 
" Whigs this majority ? Was this party a Whig party ? — No 
" man will presume to affirm so notorious an untruth. The 
" Whigs were far from being this majority, and King James 
" must have died on the Throne, if the Tories had not con- 
" curred to place the Pt ince of Orange there in his stead." 

• Parhamentary Debates, 1689. The Tories and Whigs 
coalesced a short time afterwards — Swift calls it an unna- 
tural league, and puts these words in Italics — The Sovereign 
authority was parcelled out among the faction, and made the 
purchase of indemnity for an of ending minister. — Examiner, 
No. 29. 

What: did the GrenvilHo-Sidmouthian-Foxite Administra- 
tion in the case of Pitt's monument and debts ? 



31 

mies, and by the coldness that appeared in 
every thing that related to the public, as well 
as to the King in his own particular."* — It 
appeared, that before a year and a half had ex- 
pired, they had also completely lost the good 
opinion of the People: for in the new Parlia- 
ment that met on the 20th of March, 1690, the 
Tories were by far the greater part returned. — 
The chief cause of this disgust, was the attempt 
to pass the Corporation Bill, which, as Burnet 
owns, would have put the King and the nation in 
the hands of the Whigs. '\ And yet the King 
found a way to quiet the Whigs who were dis- 
contented at the Tory Parliament. — He gave 
places to some of the party, and dismissed some 
of their opponents — So that, as the same Author 
observes, ** Whig and Tory were now pretty 
equally mixed ; and both studied to court the King 
by making advances on the Money Bills." J 

Whatever principles of action were laid down 
by the Whigs, it is certain that their conduct 
was similar to that of the opposing party, and 
that the great master-spring of their policy was 
selfishness. They liked neither King William, 
nor cared for the people — except as appendages 
to their own power and dignity. It is AN 0N-. 
DOUBTED TRUTH, that a year or two after the 

* History, &c. Book V. vol. iii. p. 46. 

t History as above, p. 54. 

t History, &c. p. b^. 



32 

Revolution^ fevey^al leaders of that party had their 
pardons sent them by King James; and had 
entered upon measures to restore him, on account 
of some disob ligations they received from King 
fFilliam, 

They soon began that artifice which they 
continued for so many years, of playing off the 
exiled against the reigning Sovereign, and upon 
all occasions preferred their belief that the Pre^ 
tender was not an impostor but a real prince. — 
Your Lordship will recognise both these quo- 
tations as proceeding from a professed enemy of 
the new Whigs,* (for Swift thought himself an 
old Whig) ; but a great writer is worth listening 
to, when he proclaims an undoubted truth j — at 
any rate the contemporary people must be 
thought to have had better opportunities of 
judging the merits of the actors in the Revolu- 
tion than your Lordship ; and this people had 
completely found out the Whigs in less than ten 
years after the accession of King William. — 
The job of creating a new East India Company, 
and above all, *' the inclinations which those of 
the Whigs who were in good posts, (they are 
Burnet's words) had expressed for keeping up a 
greater landed force," and a charge of *' robbing 
the public of the money given for the service of 
the nation, both to the supporting a vast expense, 

* Examiner, No. 39. and No. 43. 



33 

arid td the raising gteat estates to themselves/** 
these were the immediate causes of the general 
disrepute of the party, whieh your Lordship 
seems to imagine to have been in perpetual and 
tranquil, and merited possession of the popul^lf 
love, from the Revolution to the present day. 

I trust I have partially succeeded in showing 
that there are some particulars relative to the 
glorious Revolution, which those who are pet- 
petually boasting of it are willing to keep out df 
sight. — I trust that your Lordship is now aware 
that the connecting the merits of the Revolution 
with the merits of the Whigs, even of that day, 
is to count too much upon the ignorance of the 
Rabble $ and that to entail those merits, such as 
they were, upon the Whigs of the present day, 
is a device too trite and stale to be employed, 
except to adorn a declamation and please the 
boys of a Fox Club. 

Your Lordship must be aware how easy it 
would be for me to prove that there has been 
nothing like an uninterrupted succession of opi- 
nions and principles inherited by the same 
families, or indeed descending through the same 
apparent party, which can give even a plausible 
claim to your modest Whig pretensions to ex- 
clusive patriotism. 

If the Whigs have inherited any rule of con- 

* History of the Reign of King William, year 1698, 
vol. iii. p. 289. 



34 

duct, some people may think they find it in this 
their ^arly characteristic — " Give the Whigs but 
^^ power enough to insult their Sovereign, en- 
^' gross his favor to themselves, and oppress and 
" plunder their fellow subjects; they presently 
" grow into good humour and good language 
" towards the Crown; profess they will stand 
" by it with their lives and fortunes : and what- 
" ever rudeness they may be guilty of in private^ 
" yet they assure the w^orld there was never so 
" gracious a monarch."* 

The " foolish," " vulgar," " cant," '' con- 
ceited," " fantastic," appellations of Whig and 
Tory began to be used about the year 1676, and 
were much in vogue during the latter end of 
King Charles the Second's reign; they were 
nearly dropt during the reign of James II. The 
real distinction expired — but the names revived 
at the Revolution. — Before they had been thirty 
years old, " they had been pressed into the ser- 
vice of many succession of parties," and " ap- 
plied to very different kinds of principles and 
persons." — If at first, to oppose even the King's 
guard was to be a Whig, it was found in King 
William's reign, that " to be for a Standing 
Army," " to raise the prerogative above law for 
serving a turn," and '' to exalt the King's supre- 
macy beyond all precedent," were also the signs 

• Examiner, No. 35. 



3d 

of being a Whig.— At one time the Whigs cried 
tip the House of Commons as at the Convention 
Parliament, while they appeared to have the 
majority there. — At another time they cried 
down the House of Commons and extolled the 
Lords: — witness their support of the Kentish 
petitioners in 1701. It was very natural, then, 
that in Queen Anne's reign, *' the bulk of the 
Whigs appeared rather to be linked to a certain set 
of persons, than to any certain set of principles."* 
Now your Lordship knows, that against this 
set of persons, against individuals called Whigs, 
the great body of the nation was for more than 
half a century united; and that almost every 
act of which the people now complain, may be 
traced to Whig administrations.-— It is now se- 
venty years since Lord Bolingbroke endeavoured 
to expose the extreme absurdity of preserving 
the nominal distinction of Whig and Tory, and 
enforced the incontrovertible truth, that the whole 
nation could bedivided in factonly into two distinct 
sets of men, namely, the abettors of and gainers 
by Parliamentary corruption, and th^ opposers 
of and sufferers by the same corruption. f — His 
Lordship's individual character cannot invalidate 
a truth : though I know that it is a modern 

* Examiner, No. 43, where the words under inverted 
commas will be found. 

t See particularly the first and last Letter in his Disserta- 
tion on Parties. 

D 2 



Whig trick to depreciate the sound doctrines of 
those who exposed the Whig Administrations of 
George I. and II., by saying that the motive of 
the complaint was a preference of the dethroned 
family — And what if they did prefer the Stuarts 
to the house of Hanover ? — -The English who 
changed their reigning family in 1688, did not 
do it as a child at play changes its toys — it ap- 
pears that they did not intend the change of 
Kings, but only looked at more substantial ad- 
vantages — their object was a relief from misgo- 
vernmentj and if the subjects of the House of 
Hanover felt that they wanted relief from the 
same evil, they were, perhaps, right in thinking 
that the restoration of the exiled family was the 
best expedient. — It would not, I think, be diffi- 
cult to prove, that the majority of the people of 
England was always against the new settlement, 
and the manner in which it was supported by 
Whig administrations, who were thus obliged 
to organize their corrupt House of Commons 
as a counterpoise to the popular will. — At all 
events, they were perfectly justified in doing 
their best to convince their fellow country- 
men that men calling themselves Whigs, who 
had nothing in their mouths but " the power 
and majesty of the people, the original contract^ the 
authority and independency of Parliament^ liberty, 
rmstancCy exclusion, abdication, depositioii,'*^ and 

* Dissertation on Parties, Letter I. 



37 

who attributed to themselves exclusively every 
patriotic virtue in contradistinction to what they 
called the Tory advocates of prerogative, non- 
resistance, and slavery, were, in effect, mere 
pretenders to popular virtues which they never 
possessed, and kept alive those distinctions for 
the worst purposes of delusion and self-interest. 

Your Lordship knows that the folly of the 
distinction which arrogated for a certain set of 
men all popular favor, whether in or out of 
place, and whatever was their conduct, had been 
so generally felt in the reign of George IL, that 
those who wished to be honoured as Whigs were 
despised and hated as courtiers, and those whom 
the Whigs affected to depreciate as Tories and 
Jacobites, were backed by the great majority of 
the whole country, as being the party of the 
country, and the true friends of the people.* 

If the real difference was not lost at the Revo- 
lution, it was abolished when Court and Country 
party became the usual words, and the Tories 
were so long obliged to talk in the Republican 

♦ " As nothing can be more ridiculous than to preserve the 
" nominal division of Whig and Tory parties, which subsisted 
" before the Revolution, when the difference of principles, 
" that could alone make the distinction real, exists no longer; 
" so nothing can be more reasonable> than to admit the no- 
" minal division of Constifutionists and Artti-constitutionists, 
''or of a Court and Country party,^ at this time, wh<?n an 
''avowed difference ©f principles makes this distinction 
*' real.*' — Dissertation on Parties, 



style, that they seemed, says Mr. Hume, to have 
made converts of themselves by their hypocrisy.* 
Those who composed the court party in the 
reign of the two first sovereigns of the house of 
Hanover, and who wished to be called Whigs, 
imagined that the corruption of which they were 
^11 but the inventors, and which they had orga- 
nized with a fatal address, would secure their 
power, and keep the crown for ever in their 
hands. But the perfection of the machine ren- 
dered it easily transferable to other hands. It 
was not a bow that Ulysses alone could draw, a 
child could touch the trigger, and produce the 
mischief at once. His present majesty wisely 
considered, that the expedient of governing by 
a corrupt parliament could succeed in any hands. 
The new set of managers soon succeeded to all 
the power; and, of course, to all the unpopu- 
larity of those who had been so long predomi- 
nant. The rejected families then began to court 
the people, as a means of intimidating the king, 
as they had before upheld the royal authority 
for the sake of overawing the people. They were 
in possession of advantages never before possessed 
by any opposition, for they carried over with 

* See Essay IX. on the Parties of Great Britain. 

Mr. Burke says it is cant to call Walpole the organizer of a 
system of corruption. — This fine writer tried to beat down all 
truth by abusive hard words— bring facts against him — and 
he would call it " obscure diligence." 



39 

them a certain portion of borough-influence, 
which their long continuance in power had ena- 
bled them to mature, by means of court power, 
and at the same time attach to their ov\^n persons. 
From that moment this borough-influence was 
considered the right-arm of the opposition 
aristocracy, by which, and which alone it could 
be enabled to prevent the overweening prepon- 
derance of the crown in every parliament. The 
complaints of those called Tories, in fact, the 
country party, or landed interest, had been un- 
remittingly, during the two last reigns, directed 
against parliamentary corruption. Several mo- 
tions had they made for the restoration of annual 
parliaments, as the best means of diminishing 
the temptations to corruption. The proposi- 
tion, in 1745, was lost only by thirty-two votes.* 
But the new oppositioi;i had not recourse to 
this expedient: they adopted the old indefinite 
cry against prerogative, and the power of the 
crown ; and then, also, they began to attach^ 
with more pertinacity than ever, the name of 
Whigs to themselves, and that of Tories to their 
triumphant opponents. They were so long de- 
barred from all means of mischief, and the king's 
ministers proceeded with such alacrity and vi- 
gour in applying the engine of corruption, which 
they found ready made to their hands, towards 
battering down, one by one, all the popular bul- 

* January 29. See Parliamentary History, vol. xiii. p. 1057. 



40 

warks which had been left standing by their 
predecessors, that the nation began to forget 
their former misdeeds. The Rockingham Whigs 
were certainly admired and believed by the peo- 
ple. The opposers of the American war were 
undoubtedly backed by the people, who were 
not undeceived, except at the first opportunity, 
by which they could be undeceived, namely, 
the accession of the Whigs to power. 

It is all in vain, my Lord, for your Edinburgh 
Reviewer to come with his excuses for the 
Fox and North coahtion,* ^' when a minister 
" who doubled the national debt, and dismem- 
" bered the Empire, was instantly taken into 
^^ the confidence of those who threatened to 
*^ take his head/'f The great body of the 
nation, who witnessed that monstrous deed, 
passed a judgment upon it, from which there is 
no appeal. The indignation felt at that mea« 
sure, attached itself to Mr. Fox and his friends, 
long after they had again become the advocates 
of popular rights. Some there are who will 
maintain, that the party held together for a few 
years; but it was disjointed, and, at the first 
shock, it fell asunder. Then was it that the nation 
heard of new Whigs and old Whigs; and, to 
the squabbles between the two, we owe the 
French war. The only time that their union 

♦ See " The State of Parties," Edinburgh Review, June, 1818. 
t See Bishop Watson's Memoirs, p. 3d5, 



41 



could be of advantage to the nation they chose 
to differ amongst themselves.* Mr. Fox felt, 
that the remnant which he had saved from Mr. 
Burke could not be called the Whig party. In- 
deed, he was willing that his friends should drop 
a denomination, claimed, perhaps with justice, 
by the followers of Burke, and the colleagues of 
Pitt, and he recommended them to have done 
with the *' idle distinctions of Whig and Tory.''^ 
Your Lordship confesses, that he and you, and 
all of you felt, that the said remnant could not 
form an administration of itself. The adminis- 
tration which it did help to form, so far from 
reorganising the party, did, as your Lordship 
knows, dissolve the last ties which bound you 
together amongst yourselves ; much more did it 

♦ See " The Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs.** 

t See his Speech on Reform of Parliament, May, 17&7. 
Mr. Hobhouse quoted this speech on the hustings, which so 
angered the party, that Mr. Lambton was sent down to tell, 
that Lord Holland averred that Mr. Fox ha<l never used the 
words : to this, Mr. Hobhouse replied, that the words were 
given in all reports of the speech, and that Lord Holkind had 
told him, that Mr. Perry had reported the speech himself. — 
They are as follows, and are a little unlikely to have been 
foisted in by a reporter : — " We liad conquered ourselves— 
**^we had given a generous triumph to reason over prejudice, 
" we had given a death-blow to those miserable distinctions 
" of Whig and Tory, under which the warfare had been 
"maintained between pride and privilege, and' through the 
"contention of our rival jealousies, the genuine rights of thr. 
" m^ny h»d been gradually undermined and frittered awayi'* 



42 

dissolve whatever bond there might be virhich 
attached you to the nation. The odium affixed 
to that coalition, survived their short-lived 
power. They had no leader who could direct 
or dignify their measures. All their principles 
they had openly abandoned. As there had 
been nothing honourable in their rise, there was 
nothing dignified in their fall. The mere oppo- 
sition to those in power could no longer deceive 
a people who had so often confided in vain, and 
whom the experience of yesterday left without 
hope for to-morrow. For several years we heard 
no more of the Whigs, except when a pitiful 
paragraph in their Chronicle strove to show, 
that the flambeau which once blazed, and was 
now extinct, in parliament, still flickered in the 
socket on a tavern-table, and cast a cheerless 
ray on the doleful countenances of some five or 
six forlorn followers of a name. The medley of 
men who occupied the opposition benches never, 
as I heard, were guilty of the absurdity of calling 
themselves Whigs. They seldom contrived even 
to vote together upon the most important points. 
Who knew or who cared for the principles of 
Mr. Ponsonby ? Did he agree with Mr. Whit- 
bread ? Did Mr. Whitbread agree with Mr. 
Sheridan ? And where was Mr. Sheridan too ,? 
What did the party for the last of those who re- 
minded the nation, that the Whigs could once 
boast of genius, eloquence, and taste } Did not 
Messrs. Lambton, and Ferguson, and Bennett 



43 

seem to form a little squadron apart from all? 
Could any one divine which way Mr. Brougham 
was likely to vote? Did the language of Lord 
Milton accord with that of Sir Samuel Romilly ? 
Mr. Grattan too, did not he promote to the ut- 
most the last war with France, which Lord 
Grey strained all his ability to prevent? Did 
all the Opposition oppose even the Indemnity 
Bill? How many of the Opposition counte- 
nanced the Duke of Bedford in supporting Mr. 
Hone? And you, my Lord, permit me to ask 
whether any party has counted upon your Lord- 
ship for these last years? And yet you now aid 
the feeble attempt to revive a nominal distinc- 
tion, which belongs to nobody, which may, with 
equal justice, be applied to any body, which 
means any thing, every thing, and nothing. 

I am ^,t a loss to imagine, by what indiscretion 
it was, that the OUTS (for that is the nearest to 
a true generic title) thought it advisable to re- 
new the word in their journal, and in their 
newspapers, when they were wise enough not 
to employ it at the la^t general election. I do 
not recollect, that Sir. S. Romilly was called a 
Whig by his friends during the canvass for West- 
minster. I am not aware that the opposition- 
banner was inscribed with the obsolete word in 
any of the contested counties or towns. But 
the unpopularity of the king's ministers, and an 
addition of a few votes, seem to have made some 
of the Outs think that it would be advisable to 



44 

try whether the People are not again to be 
ravished with the whistHng of a name. Hence 
the Edinburgh Review with its learned and long 
passages that lead to nothing. Hence, all that 
the faithful Chronicle has proclaimed of the 
Whigs — the old Whigs — the Whigs of England. 
Hence also that bold and candid avowal of Mr. 
George Lamb, that he gloried in the name of 
Whig. And yet, strange must it appear, that 
not a single placard of the party ventured to 
invite the Electors to vote for a Whig. No, 
they were told to vote for a friend of Sir Samuel 
Romilly — for a friend of the poor old glorious 
Revolution, again dragged from its repose — for 
the friend of short parliaments — for the friend of 
the poor man — ^^but not a word about the Whigs. 
Mr. Hobhouse indeed, and Sir Francis Burdett, 
did their best to keep the merits of the Whigs as 
much in view, as the modesty of their opponents 
would allow : but the buff and blue were pru- 
dently kept out of the contest, in order to be 
more fresh for the triumph ; and perhaps owing 
to the mistake made by the people at not recog- 
nising and rewarding their volunteer leaders and 
saviours at the last day of the election, we heard 
nothing even then of the victory of the Whigs. 
The returned candidate in his address of thanks, 
dropped the title in which he had gloried, and 
neither he nor the Chronicle, thought it pru- 
dent to boast that the Whrgs had retu^rned a 
member for Westminster. The hct was only a 



45 



day old, it was as well to wait a week before they 
gave birth to the 6ction. 

To our infinite surprise then, my Lord ! and 
I fancy to the consternation of the party, your 
Lordship conies forward with a Defence of the 
Whigs. And you now wish to revive the fan- 
tastic obsolete name, which has not existed in 
its original sense for nearly a century and a half; 
which almost every sensible politician of all par- 
ties in that period, from Burnet* to Fox, has 
protested against as mischievous and absurd, and 
which you yourself cannot introduce without an 
uncalled-for admission, that it is exposed to 
ridicule and reproach. You begin, indeed, ra- 
ther tamely at first with a Defence ! A Defence ! 
What a poor substitute for the song of victory 
which usually crowns the exploits of all election 
majorities. 

And this is what you call " throwing in th« 
bark after a fever 5" Who has been sick ?— Not 
the Reformers, they fondly fancy themselves 
rn a state of florid health, which they have never 
enjoyed since they have at times been brought 
into the infectious company of certain pretended 
friends. Is it the Whigs who are sick ? 

* " The last of these had gone into all the steps that had 
" been made for the King, with great zeal ; and by that 
*' means was hated by the High Party, whom for distinction 
" sake, I will hereafter call Tories, and the others whigs, 
" terms that I have spoken much against, and huve ever 
*' hated." — History, &c. vol. iii. p. 5. 



46 

But come, my Lord, I am no Whig ;— I will be 
fair with you, — your Apothecary's simile means, 
that the people have been in a paroxysm, and 
that you their Physician have been watching, and 
have eagerly caught the first intermission of their 
furious disease. Your Lordship knows that 
sometimes patients will box their physician. We 
may '^ urge'' you a little, but you shall have 
fair play. — You have then seen* " zvith the utmost 
satisfaction from the result of the Westminster 
election, that the sound sense of the country y never 
lost, but at times overpowered, was beginning to 
return again,'* This sentence I take to imply 
two distinct propositions ; namely, that the state 
of the Representation in Westminster has for 
some years been such as to cause a belief that 
the sound sense of the country had been over- 
powered ; and, secondly, that the return of Mr. 
Lamb is a decided proof that this sound sense is 
recovering its former force and functions. 

It is true that since the year 1807, the Elec- 
tors of Westminster have given a practical sup- 
port to an opinion very general throughout Eng- 
land, that nothing was to be hoped from any 
body of politicians, whether in or out of place, 
and that nothing could redeem the nation except 
the uninfluenced controul of the people over 
the management of their own affairs in the Com- 

* Preface to 2nd Edition of Lord Erskine's Defence, &c. 



47 

mons House of Parliament. The Electors of 
Westminster had seen the latter opinion adopted 
by many of the leading politicians of their time; 
and they had seen it abandoned by those poli- 
ticians: for, surely my Lorxil, you cannot have 
the hardihood to say that the paramount neces- 
sity* of Reform, is now, as it once was, the 
creed of any party small or great in Parliament. 
They believed that the principle which had been 
perhaps dropt, because adopted for the most part 
as a sort of party question, and not emanating 
from the people, would flourish when manifestly 
and solely proceeding from the people, and ac- 
knowledged universally to be the great national 
cause independent of all individual interests. — 
The first step towards their great design, was 
the reformation of their own representation. 
This they undertook under happier auspices 
than had attended their efforts when Mr. Tooke 
was the independent reform candidate. The 
monstrous coalition*)* between Fox, Grenville, and 

* See the Whig Speeches in 1793, on Mr. Grey's Motion 
for referring the Petition of the Friends of the People to a 
Committee. Mr. Grey said, there could have been no Ame- 
rican War, if there had been Reform. Mr. Erskine said, the 
French Revolution was owing to the want of Reform in the 
English Parliament, at which the Treasury-bench burst into 
a laugh. 

t Lord Erskine's excuse for this coalition, is, that the 
Foxites went in to keep out worse men ; if this is to be done 
with the sacrifice of every principle, they might as well have 



4S 

Sid mouth, had opened the eyes of the whole 
nation, and at this juncture there appeared a 
man born for the time, the place, and the cir- 
cumstances, and designated as it were by the 
very hand of nature, to be the representative and 
champion of a glorious cause. 

Without the help or interference of a single 
individual of political power or eminence, the 
Electors completely succeeded in restoring, as 
far as depended upon them, the purity and pur- 
poses of Election, and returned by the unbi- 
assed votes of the People, a true Representative 
of the People. It was making a mighty pro- 
gress to show that the people not only were fully 
competent to the conduct of this important duty, 
but knew how to fulfil it without any of the 
base arts, without any of the outrage, it may be 
said, the carnage, which had in Whig and Tory 
days attended the depraved struggle between the 
rival factions. 

The influence of the Electors and particularly 
the example of the Representative gained an 

«taid in to keep out worse men. His Lordship says, tbat all 
former differences between Mr. Fox and Lord Grenville had 
ceased to exist. Lord Grenville said in 1798, Jan. 9, tbat he 
voted for the assessed taxes as a sort of pledge against Reform 
of Parliament. Mr. Fox had said on the 4th of January, 
1798, that he would never come into any administration of 
which a Radical Reform both of the Representation of the 
People in Parliament, &c. was not the basis. I never heard 
that Lord Grenville retracted, but either he or Mr. Fox must 
have sacrificed a principle on that point. 



49 

immediate proselyte in the person of him who 
had at first appeared under circumstances some- 
what equivocal, and from that moment both the 
seats for Westminster were in the uncontested 
possession of the people. Thus the people of 
the metropolis, when left to themselves, anc^ 
acting solely for the sake of advancing a principle, 
had without a single act for which an honest 
man need blush, peaceably, but firmly, and as it 
then appeared for ever, shaken off the trammels 
which had bound them for centuries to the court, 
and which the whole force of the Whig opposi- 
tion, had never attempted to remove. For eleven 
years, they reaped the reward of their honest 
exertions, and in defiance of calumny, and of 
the desertion and mutability of others, continued 
unchanged themselves, still enforcing their great 
national doctrine, and still showing by their own 
example that the cause of reform and of public 
morality, are one and the same. 

You'r Lordship's Defence wisely says, that in 
Mr. Fox's time a Whig candidate, if not op- 
posed by the court, would have walked over the 
course. But this is the very point. In those 
days, the court always did lay claim to one seat 
at least, and Mr. Fox's friends never could carry 
two opposition members. 

The admiration, the love of the whole people 
of England, attached to Sir F. Burdett, and to 
him only, was sufficient proof that the nation at 

E 



50 

large approved of the resolution by which the 
Electors of Westminster adhered to their first 
object of making their representation the rally- 
ing center of Reform. 

But the gentlemen your Lordship calls Whigs, 
did not participate in the general satisfaction at 
seeing even two seats out of 658, filled solely by 
the wishes of the people, without hint, influence, 
or advice from any party. The pitiful figure they 
had made in attempting to return Mr. Sheridan, 
was still in their memory, but they still dared to 
haunt the places where their honour died. An un- 
fortunate division amongst the Reformers at the 
general election in 1818, afforded an opportunity 
which they had scarcely hoped to obtain. A Re- 
quisition to Sir Samuel Romilly was got up, and 
carried about for subscription, I speak a fact, by 
a little Scotch Whig lawyer, and by the Editor of 
the Chronicle 5 — the latter was told, " If you 
start a Whig, you w^ill have a Court candidate 
started."— The answer was, '^ we can't help it, 
we don't care."— Mr. Brougham down in Cum- 
berland, compared the influence of the people in 
Westminster, to the influence of the Lowthers 
in Westmoreland, and talked with glee of the 
Whigs opening the close borough of Westminster. 

The Court candidate, as foretold, was started, 
and as might have been foreseen, divided an im- 
mense number of votes with the regular or party 
opposition, against the irregular or popular oppo- 



51 

sition. — ^This help, and the great character of Sir 
Samuel Romilly, together with sundry breakfasts 
and little tricks, and the hatred of the Court, 
brought in the party candidate.* — Sir F. Bur- 
dett was again returned, and returned upon the 
same principles, and by the same means, as had 
secured his former elections for Westminster. 
The opponents of the people, but more particu- 
larly your Lordship's Whig friends, aye, your 
forty years' friend, Mr. Perry, declared openly, 
and circulated privately, that Sir F. Burdett had 
expended large sums to procure his election. It 
WAS A GROSS AND MALICIOUS FALSEHOOD. The 

whole expenses have been stated to a fraction in 
the late Report of the Westminster Committee — 
the items of every farthing spent, may be in- 
spected by every subscriber. I tell you, ray 

♦ One of the complaints against the Reformers then was, 
that they canvassed for single votes for Sir F. Burdett. It 
should be recollected, that Sir S. Romilly had very early divided 
nearly 2000 votes with Sir M. Maxwell ; had the Reformers 
given the second votes of their 2000 plumpers to Sir S. 
Romilly, what would haye been the consequence ? — Sir F. 
Burdett would have been more than 2000 behind Sir S. Ro- 
milly on the close of the poll, — the Whigs would have cried 
out, " where is your Reform now ? where is your Burdett ? " 
and would have said, nay sworn, that they had forced their 
friends to divide their votes in order to help poor Sir Francis : 
as it was, all their efforts were directed to kidnapping the 
voters in the very Committee-room, of the Reformers, and as 
they were going to the poll, by every sort of trick and mean 
electioneering artifice. 

£ 2 



52 

Lord, without fear of contradiction, that if a 
single illegal or even immoral act can be proved 
against one of those concerned in promoting the 
return of Sir F. Burdett, the Westminster Elec- 
tors will allow you to nominate the next candi- 
date yourself. You cannot be so ignorant, so 
wilfully blind at this time as not to feel that Sir 
F. Burdett's election, was a truly popular and 
strictly constitutional election in every sense of 
the word. Ask any of your friends who can- 
vassed on that occasion, ask them whether it 
was necessary to bribe or terrify any man into 
voting for Sir F. Burdett. Ask them whether 
they did not find it expedient in canvassing for 
Sir S. Romilly, to say they wished well to Sir F. 
Burdett. 

Well, the same individuals, whose committee 
amounted to between three and four hundred of 
the most respectable inhabitants of Westminster, 
endeavoured to return Mr. Hobhouse on exactly 
the same principle as they had returned two 
members for the last twelve years ; that is, not 
as the advocate of this or that particular plan 
of Reform, but as the advocate of the paramount 
necessity of reform, as opposed to all party prin- 
ciples and connexions whatever. This endeavor 
they made also by the same honourable unmixed 
efforts as had rescued their city from the terror 
and corruption of former elections. If the jackal 
of the party can hunt down and trace a single 



53 



unworthy act to the promoters of Mr. Hob- 
house's election, let it be proclaimed at once. — 
But the party, backed as they are with what 
they call success, do not now pretend to renew 
the absurd calumnies of former elections. — 
The public indeed, have at last learnt that these 
gentlemen of the Aristocracy seldom charge the 
people with a crime with which their own prac- 
tice has not made them already familiar. — The 
convicted bludgeon-hirers have taught the nation 
a lesson, and have themselves, perhaps, learnt 
circumspection.-— Your Lordship cannot prove a 
single unconstitutional act or attempt in the 
whole career of the reform Electors of West- 
minster, from the first return of Sir F. Burdett 
in 1807, up to the present moment. — What then 
can you mean by asserting that they and their 
example have for a time overpowered the good 
sense of the country f 

Is it to overpower the good sense of the counr 
try, to say that the people ought, and to show 
that the people can, elect their own representa- 
tives without being corrupted themselves or cor- 
rupting others : without being intimidated them- 
selves or intimidating others : without aid or in- 
terference from any party ? Is it to overpower the 
good sense of the countrx/y constantly to impress 
the justice and necessity of giving to the rest of 
the community the same advantages of a free 
choice of representatives which the Electors of 



54 

Westminster have procured for themselves, and 
enjoy by the extensive right of suffrage esta- 
bhshed in their own city ? Is it to overpower the 
good sense of the country to chuse such a man as 
Sir F. Burdett as the advocate of that justice and 
necessity ? Is it to overpower the good sense of the 
country to attempt to send another man into Par- 
liament who may fight the same battle by the 
side of that advocate ? 

I will tell your Lordship what you were 
thinking of, though you did not dare to say it 
openly. — Your Lordship was thinking that if the 
example of Westminster should be followed in 
all those counties or towns where the extension 
of suffrage allows of that kind of election called 
popular — that is to say, if the Electors through- 
out the kingdom, in all but the very rotten 
boroughs, should take their own elections into 
their own hands — should banish all bribery and 
influence, and even recommendation — should see 
with their own eyes, and hear with their own 
ears, and should return to Parliament pure re- 
presentatives of the interests and wishes of the 
third estate, of the Commons only — then your 
Lordship was thinking that a death-blow would 
be given to the power of the Aristocracy, which 
wrould henceforward be entirely confined to their 
own branch of the Legislature — and the House 
of Commons would become a Democratic 
assembly, not only virtually, but substantially 



55 

representing the people, and acting professedly 
and purely, according to the general injunctions 
and interests of the people. 

I feel confident that it was an apprehension 
of this consequence which made your Lordship 
use those strange words, and yet I defy you to 
prove that the Constitution of this country 
designs the House of Commons to be any other 
than that which I have just mentioned. I know 
indeed that an ingenious young gentleman, 
Mr. John William Ward,* did once say, that it 
was never meant the House of Commons should 
be purely democratical — but you, my Lord, who 
know Greek as well as Mr. Ward, and who know 
law better, never can say that the House of Com- 
mons is not meant in its original institution, to 
be an epitome of the POWER OF THE PEOPLE or 
of the Democracy. — Formally it is so at this 
day; and some wise men go so far as to say that 
it is virtually. The Sovereign has not yet dropt 
the phrase, to meet my people in Parliament — He 
does not mean the people recommended to him 
by the house of Cavendish or the house of Man- 
ners — No — he means the people as directly dis- 
tinguished from the heads and tails of these 
houses, who have their power in the other 
branch of the Legislature — he means the Demo- 
cracy, and nothing else.f 

* In his speech on Mr. Brand's motion in 1812. 
t Mf. Burke said, " the peers do not interfere as peers, 



56 

I am perfectly well aware, that if the example 
only of the Electors of Westminster were to be 
followed throughout the country, even were there 
no change in the frame of the House of Com- 
mons, the representation would advance in no 
trifling degree towards its intended democratical 
character 3 in other words, the House would be 
more a Commons* House than it is at present. — 
Now it is impossible that your Lordship, as a 
Lawyer^ as an Englishman, as one who still 
may feel some attachment to Parliamentary Re- 
form, should really in your heart condemn a line 
of conduct that has no other than this truly 
constitutional tendency — for it is constitutional — 
you know it is. 

I have been looking through your Pamphht 
to help myself still farther to some glimmering 
of meaning in this your proposition concerning 
the sound sense of the country having been over- 
powered by the Electors of Westminster — I find 
therein the following phrases — '^ hot, undisci- 
plined Reformers," " Libellers of Parliament,*' 
and lastly, " Revolutionists" — all which epithets 
I presume your Lordship would wish should be 
applied by others, for you do not directly apply 

tney interfere as men of property : but the fact of their being 
peers should prevent them from applying their property in 
that way, otherwise the Bill of Right talks nonsense, and 
when it says peers shall not interfere at elections, says no- 
thing, and speaks of individuals who have no existence. 



57 

them yourself, to the Electors of Westminster, 
who have returned Sir F. Burdett. 

Let us see — I must refer your Lordship to the 
" Reply'* made to your pamphlet, by one of 
these hot, undisciplined electors, in order to con- 
vince you, that the heat, to which you object, is 
precisely that which once animated your Lord- 
ship's Whigs. You cannot deny, that these 
gentlemen did once think Reform the one thing 
needful, the Paramount necessity of the state. 
1 could multiply quotation on quotation, but a 
reference to the Reply, and to the Declaration 
of the Friends of the people, will save my paper, 
and your Lordship's time. 

I feel not so much anxiety to show, that the 
Whigs have deserted the cause, as I do to plead 
for the permission for the people still to adhere 
to it. 

I see that the Edinburgh Review, or the gen- 
tleman who had the credit of the article, Sir 
James Mackintosh, decides it to be very puerile to 
quote a man's former opinions against himself. 
To be sure. Sir James may fairly endeavour to 
lay down that maxim which accords happily 
with the opinions of the HONEST Man,* who 

♦ See a pamphlet with this title, " A Letter to the Right 
Honourable William Pitt, on his Apostacy from the Cause of 
Parliamentary Reform, &c. &c., 1792,^' signed an Honest 
Man, and attributed to Sir James Mackintosh. For mere 
curiosity's sake, I beg to compare what is said in the Edin- 



58 

dealt out his plain sayings against Mr. Pitt, the 
Curio " of the black SLundih of apostacy." But 
Sir James can hardly say, that there is any thing 
puerile in a man's defending his practices by re- 
ferring to authority. If the authority to which 
I refer happens to be the Whigs of other days, 
I protest it is not out of malice; it is only for 
support. You think that you look better and 

burgh Review, against the people becoming themselves Re- 
formers without their natural leaders, and against adopting 
moderate Reform, whilst wild reformers are on foot, with the 
following declamation of the Honest Man. 

*' Despairing that a corrupt body should spontaneously re- 
" form itself, you (Mr. Pitt) invited the interposition of the 
" People. You knew that dispersed effort must be unavail- 
" ing. You therefore encouraged them to associate. You 
*' were not deterred from appealing to the People by such 
" miserable common places of reproach, as those of advertis- 
" ing for grievances, diffusing discontents, and provoking 
" sedition. You well knew that in the vocabulary of corrupt 
*' power inquiry is sedition, and tranquilhty is synonymous 
*' with blind and abject obedience. You were not deterred 
" from joining with the associations of the people, by being 
" told they were to overawe parliament. You knew the value 
" of a jargon that does not deserve to be dignified by so high 
" a name as sophistry. You felt for it that contempt which 
^f every man of sense always feels, and which every man of 
" sincerity will always express. They told you that extra- 
" vagant speculations were abroad ; that it was no moment to 
f* hope for the accomplishment of temperate reform when 
" there were so many men of mischievous and visionary prin- 
" ciples, whom your attempts would embolden, and whom 
" your reforms would not content." 



59 

are more active without your tail ; all I ask is 
to be allowed to keep mine, and to refer to the 
handsome figure which your Lordship made be- 
fore you tumbled into the trap. 

I say, that the heat of the Westminster Re- 
formers is not a line higher than that of the 
former Whig-Reformers. Those whom you de- 
fend were mortally offended at Mr. Fox being 
called a RADICAL Reformer, and being said to 
have called himself a Radical Reformer, Mr. 
Lambton was forthwith dispatched to say, that 
he had Lord Grey's authority for asserting, that 
Mr. Fox never called himself a Radical Parlia^ 
mentary Reformer, but declared himself for a 
radical change of system » Whereupon the peo- 
ple at the hustings, who did not understand 
shuffling, called out, '^ It is all the same." Mr. 
Hobhouse quoted Mr. Fox's own words;* he 

♦ ' I think the words I used were these, " that a Radical 
" Reform, both of the representation of the people in parlia- 
" ment, and of the abuses that have crept into the practice 
'' of the constitution of this country, together with a complete 
*' and fundamental change of system of administration, must 
'1 take place, and that until it did I for one would take no 
" share in any administration, or be responsible in any of- 
" iice in his majesty's councils."— I think these were my 
'words, lam sure they were the substance of what I said ; 
' was there any explanation necessary ?* — Mr. Fox*s Speech, 
Commons' Debates, Jan. 4, 1798. 

' He (Mr. Fox) had already declared, he would not come 
' in (to administration) without a total, fundamental, and ra- 



60 

quoted the words of those who charged Mr, 
Fox with the very invention of the term " ra- 
dical;'* he might have quoted the ballads of 
the day.* Mr. Fox himself, however, has set- 
tled the question as to the radical change of sys- 
tem; and that he has done so explicitly that I 
trust we shall hear no more of this poor distinc- 
tion. These are his words :— " As long as I 
" stated the necessity of reforming abuses in 
" general ; while I said there must be ^ a change 
'* of measures,' ^ a radical change of system,' 
" there was no alarm taken ; but when I came 
** to specify *' a Parliamentary Reform^ then 
" every thing I said became dangerous and 
*^ alarming : my words became then ambiguous 
" and mystical. **f One would think that he 
had spoken them prophetically, to furnish an 
unquestionable proof that his reform was ^par- 
liamentary reform, and to prevent the silly in- 

' dical Reform of Parliament ; and he (Mr. Perceval) begged 
' the house to attend to those most chosen, dangerous, and 
' alarming words/ — Mr, FercevaVs Speech, ibid. 

" The expression he (Mr. Fox) employed, and which has 
" become more conspicuous from its being made the subject 
** of particular thanks in certain resolutions lately advertised, 
"was that he would take no share in any administration 
" without a Radical Reform in the representation, and of the 
" abuses of the present system. Such was the expression of 
" my right Jionourable friend.'* — Mr. Sheridan's Speech, ibid, 

* " At the Shakespeare Tavern dining/' — See Antijacohin» 

t See 3Ir. Fox's speech, ibid. 



61 

terpretations of any injudicious defender. We 
must have no more denials by authority. It is, 
indeed, a very fine thing to be a lord ; but the 
whole house protesting upon oath should not 
avail against written records never disputed 
before, and manifestly disputed now in order to 
serve a turn. In the debate of Dec. 3, 1795, 
Mr. Fox says that he had never hoped much 
from Reform, although he had always voted for 
it; but on January 4, 1798, he confesses he had 
changed his opinion, and then thought par- 
liamentary Reform indispensable. If, after this, 
any man tells me that Mr. Fox confessed to him 
that he was not a parliamentary Reformer, I 
shall not attempt to argue, I shall say that Mr. 
Fox told me he was a parliamentary Reformer. 
A false bond is best answered by a false quit- 
tance — or I will point to the parliamentary 
debates as Bishop Watson did to the Scriptures, 
.** En codicem sacrum ! ** and a sacred code they 
are, if, as your Lordship says ; ihey fully and faith- 
fully record the virtues and talents of the Whigs,^ 
I should be glad to ask your Lordship whether 
the alarmists^ the third part of the Whig heaven 
whom Mr. Burke dragged down with him, whe- 
ther they did not think the Whig Reformers as 
hot as you think the Westminster Reformers. 
As far as the PARAMOUNT URGENCY of Reform 
is concerned, all the speeches of the Whig 
* Defence, p. 7. 



69. 

Reformers are quite as decisive as any thing 
said in these days at the Crown and Anchor. 
We want no other proof of this than Mr. Grey's 
stirring up the people, in 1794, to meet in bodies 
and intimidate the House of Commons by acting 
upon its prudence, * 

If the heat be proved by the plan of Reform, 
I say that the declaration made by Mr. Hob- 
house is neither more nor less than the declaration 
made hj the friends of the people in 1795, those 
very friends of the people whose petition was 
presented to parliament in 1793, by Lord Grey 
and by yourself, and who were notoriously iden- 
tified with the Foxites in parliament, f 

The Society declared for equality and im- 
partiality of suffrage, and for a new division of 
the country ; Mr. Hobhouse declared for equality 
and uniformity of suffrage, implying, of course, 
a new division of the country. The Society 
said, the electors should be as numerous as 
possible 5 Mr. Hobhouse declared for the largest 
extension of suffrage possible. The Society 
declared that the elections might be " triennial, 
biennial, or even ANNUAL, f as they were in 

* See Letter to the Duke of Portland, 
t The alarm against annual parliaments is quite new. 
That moderate Reformer, Mr. C. Wyvill, was for annual par- 
liaments, and yet headed the largest of all the many associa- 
tions of the Whig gentry for parliamentary Reform. Mr. 
Alderman Sawbridge, who made what was called his annual 






63 

former times." Mr. Hobhouse declared that 
elections might be every twenty-four months, 
or every twelve months. The Society said ** that 
the whole measure must move together, and act 
at once with all its force ; " in other words, they 
recommended a radical not a gradual Reform ; 
Mr. Hobhouse declared himself a radical and 
not ^gradual Reformer, saying at the same time, 
as Sir F. Burdett said, that he could be happy 
to accept any Reform from others, although he 
should propose none but a radical Reform him- 
self; and this, by the way, was a more moderate 
avowal than any made by your Lordship's 
Society, who more than hint they would have 
the whole Reform or none. 

Those of the Westminster Reformers who have 
declared for annual parliaments, and what is 
called universal suffrage, have declared only for 
the principle to be found in the opinion of the 
same Society, when they said that they " admit 
the general right of voting at elections to be 
COMMON and PERSONAL." But that the great 
majority of Westminster Reformers never did 
suppose actual extension of suffrage to every 
individual to he indispensable, is decidedly proved 
by their selection and support of Mr. Hobhouse, 
who positively declared the extension of suffrage 

motion for shortening the duration of parliaments, said that 
he preferred annual parliaments, and he was supported on 
one occasion by 83 members ; this was in 1772. 



64 

to be, in his opinion, of third-rate importance. 
The truth is, that the Westminster Reformers 
have always been comparatively indifferent to the 
plan, their preaching and their practice have been 
directed to inculcate the PARAMOUNT importance 
of Reform. It has always been a consolation 
and an apparent guarantee to them, when they 
have found a man inclined to declare for the 
most decisive and direct Reform 3 and very na- 
turally so ; because the Whigs, (who, as I have 
just shewn, by the voice of their Society, once 
were of the same opinion as the Westminster 
Reformers,*) now affect to call themselves 
moderate Reformers -, and therefore make it 
necessary that those who are not to be suspected 
of being changeable as the Whigs, should show 
that their opinions are upon that subject more 
decisive than those of the Whigs. A declaration in 
favor of the principle of annual parliaments and 
universal suffrage in the eyes of the Westminster 

* It is well known that Mr. Fox, who was against universal 
suffrage, still said publicly in parhament, and that too when 
he was Secretary of State, that on the whole he thought the 
best man to be entrusted with framing a project of Reform 
was the Duke of Richmond. Now the Duke of Richmond 
was the very apostle of universal suffrage. 

See Speech of Mr. Fox on Mr. Pitt's motion for Reform 
in 1783, also Mr. Grey said *' he did not approve of the 
" Duke of Richmond's plan of Reform, though he thought 
" it better than the present system.'' — Parliamentary Debates, 
May 6, 1793. 



m 

Reformers, cannot but be a recommendation, in 
as much as it is a presumptive evidence that the 
candidate is not to be classed with the Whig 
pretenders to moderate Reform ; hence the atten- 
tion of the electors was directed to Mr. Kinnaird : 
but the Westminster Reformers never did regard 
such a declaration as indispensable; they never 
were for annual parliaments and universal suf- 
frage in the pure, bigotted, exclusive sense of 
the phrase ; they never quarrelled with any one 
as the author of a celebrated pamphlet did with 
the French for putting any limit to their right of 
suffrage. If such had been their view of the 
question, they would not have left Major Cart- 
wright with ^8 votes, nor have given nearly four 
thousand votes to Mr. Hobhouse. 

There is, in short, nothing more hot in their 
plaji than there was in the Whig plan of Reform ; 
any more than there is any thing more hot in their 
importwiity than there was in that of the Whigs. 
They contend only for what the Whigs once 
contended, the PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE OF 
REFORM. 

So much for the heat of the Westminster Re- 
formers; now comes your Lordship's other epi- 
thet, undisciplined. 

Your Lordship, in another place, has shown 
your fears of organized detractors. These de- 
tractors are, of course, the Westminster Re- 
fprmers, who, it seems, have discipline enough 

F 



66 

to do harm, although they have not discipluie 
enough to do good. They are under some or- 
ganization, you confess, and under some dis- 
cipline or teaching, or rule of conduct ; but then 
this organization is their own; this discipline 
they have derived from themselves ; this rule of 
conduct has been self-taught. The rub is, that 
the Westminster Reformers are disciplined, but 
are not disciplined by the Whigs : they a /e dis- 
ciples; they are followers; but then it is of a 
system taught by their own convictions; and 
they are Tzo/ disciples, they are not followers of 
the Whigs. Your forty years' friend, Mr. Perry, 
in his Chronicle, the other day, attributed in 
part the large minority in favor of Mr. Hobhouse 
to the discipline of the Westminster Reformers. 
That was his word. I am no Whig — I misquote 
nobody wilfully. 

If, by want of discipline you mean want of 
instruction, I have already shown you that the 
Westminster Reformers have adopted the same 
notions as to Reform, as were professed formerly 
by the Whig Friends of the People, I may fairly 
add, that if those friends had adhered to that 
notion, the Reformers would have been happy 
to have been indebted to them for their instruc- 
tion. 

Your Lordship, however, does certainly object 
to the Westminster Reformers nothing else than 
that they are not under the discipline of your Whig 



67 

friends. Thus it is the people must be led, and 
the Whigs kindly undertake for guides. In vain 
the people say, " we were, if you please, taught 
to walk by you when we were as yet young in 
the ways of Reform, but you would walk with 
us no longer; you got upon your high horse, 
and rode away ; we have heard no more of you 
for many years. Now you come back, having 
been thrown by your nags, you want something^ 
to do, and offer to help us again, but we have 
grown up in the interval. Go our way, if you 
like, we will thank you for your company ; but 
as for your leading strings ! excuse us ! we can 
walk alone." 

I now come to the Westminster Reformers as 
*^ Libellers of Parliament." The libel to which 
your Lordship alludes seems to be not only the 
libel which speaks falsely, but the libel which 
breaks the King's peace by speaking the truth. 
We must consider them together. The Re- 
formers have, I will allow, taken every occasion 
to insist upon the notorious corruption of the 
House of Commons, and upon the melancholy 
truth, that, constituted as it is, no good whatever 
is to be expected from the House of Commons. 
As to the first part of the proposition, it is what 
was insisted upon for many years by your Lord- 
ship's Whigs, and it has been insisted upon by 
many statesmen at previous periods of our his- 
tory. I pass over the perpetual complaints of 

F 2 



68 

the Country party in the first years of the acces- 
sion of the House of Hanover. But let me 
direct your attention to what was said and done 
by those who called themselves Patriots ^ and 
who were called disaffected Whigs by the friends 
of the minister, Walpole. These gentlemen 
endeavoured to bring the House of Commons 
into contempt, not only by words, but by deeds : 
they seceded from their duties : a scheme which 
the Tories had before tried for the same express 
object, and which the Whigs have since tried 
twice; once in Lord Rockingham's time, in 1777, 
and again under Mr. Fox. The language with 
which they were reproached, is a complete coun- 
terpart of that now levelled against the West- 
minster Reformers. Sir Robert Walpole, in his 
famous speech on the 13th of February, 1741, 
after complimenting the Tory, or what we should 
call perhaps the regular old opposition, then 
struck out against the Patriots : 

'' Can it,'* said he, " be fitting in them (the 
'^ Tories) who have divided the public opinion 
" of the nation, to share it with those who now 
'^ appear as their competitors? with the men 
" of yesterday, the boys in politics, who would 
" be absolutely contemptible did not their auda- 
" city render them detestable ? with the mock 
" patriots, whose practice and professions prove 
" their selfishness and malignity ; who threatened 
*' to pursue me to destruction, and who have 



1 



6g 

-*' never for a moment lost sight of their object ? 
" These men, under the name of Separatists, pre- 
" sume to call themselves, exclusively, the natmi 
" and the people, and under that character assume 
" all power. In their estimation, the King, Lords, 
" and Commons, are difactmi, and they are the 
" government. Upon these principles, they 
" threaten the destruction of all authority, and 
" think they have a right to judge, direct, and 
" resist, all legal magistrates. They withdraw 
" from Parliament because they succeed in 
'' nothing, and then attribute their want of suc- 
" cess not to its true cause, their own want of 
" integrity and importance, but to the effects of 
'' places, pensions, and corruption."* 

Read this, my Lord ! and tell me whether 
you might not fancy yourself perusing a Fox 
Club Speech against the " men of yesterday," 
the " mock patriots, audacious, contemptible, 
detestable Separatists," who " presume to call 
themselves the nation, the people, and to call 
King, Lords, and Commons, a faction :" against 
those " who revile the Parliament, because they 
can succeed in none of their attempts in Parlia- 
ment ; " and who, having neither " integrity nor 
importance," attribute their want of success to 
the effect of " places, pensions, and corruption." 

And yet the name of Lord Chatham is to be 
found amongst those very abandoned characters, 

♦ Coxe's Walpole, Chap. 56. 



70 

and it must be some consolation to the Westmin- 
ster Reformers to find themselves charged with 
no more than was laid at the door of that illus- 
trious statesman , who, indeed, for the remainder 
of his career, seems to have been in nowise afraid 
of speaking openly of the Corruption of the 
House of Commons, and at the latter part of his 
life made a motion to dissolve the said Assembly, 
which in one speech he called " a corrupt House 
of Commons which inverted all law and order,*** 
saying with Shakspeare, 

Fie on it ! oh, fie ! 
'Tis an unweeded garden, things 
Rank and gross in nature possess it merely. 

and in another affirmed, that *^ the people had 
no confidence in the present House of Commons, 
who had betrayed their trust,"f and showed the 
necessity of having a Parliament in whom the 
people could place a proper confidence. On 
another occasion, J he called the Parliament a 
" Mob :'* certainly this is libelling Parliament in 
the same sense in which you would charge the 
Westminster Reformers with libelling Parliament. 
" Lord Chatham,** said your Lordship in the 
Pamphlet on the French War, '*' had detected 
" and exposed the rank corruption of theHouse 

* See Lord Chatham's Speech on the 1st of May, 1770. 
See also the Lords* Protest. 
f See his Speech on May 14, 1770. 
% See his Speech, April 30, 1771. 



71 

" of Commons, as the sole cause of that fatal 
" quarrel (the American war), and left it as a 
*^ legacy to his son to avenge and correct it ;*' 
— you added afterwards, " Libels on Parliament at 
** that time, as since, zvere written ; but Mr. Pitt's 
" were unquestionably the strongest and the best,"* 
We may see then what you mean by libel, although 
we can, indeed, discern that you thought diffe- 
rently of the good strong libels written by Mr. 
Pitt, and the good strong libels of the Westmin- 
ster Reformers. 

As I have mentioned Lord Chatham's name, 
your Lordship will permit me to quote the 
authority of your brother, for saying, that not 
only did that Whig statesman libel, that is^ 
speak disagreeable truths of the House of Com- 
mons, or to use your phrase " indecently ani- 
madvert upon its character and conduct,** but 
he had formed just the same notion of the true 
remedy for corruption, as the Westminster Re-: 
formers, he looked to the Autocracy,^ (a word 

* See " A View of the Causes and Consequences'of the pre- 
sent War with France," pp. 7 and 8. 

f Lord Buchan, in his character of Thonason the Poet, has 
these words — " A free constitution of government, or what I 
would beg leave to call the Autocracy of the people, is the 
panacea of moral diseases; 

" Eighteen years after Thomson's death, the late Lord 
Chatham agreed with me in making this remark ; and when 
1 said, ' But, Sir ! what will become of poor old England, 
' that doats on the imperfections of her pretended constitu- 



7t 

liappily invented by Lord Buchan) of the people,^ 
to their spontaneous, uninfluenced exercise of 
their own power, as the panacea for all nnoral 
diseases in the government. He was indeed in 
one sense of the word, what we should call only 
a moderate Reformer, but he was not a moderate 
Reformer in the present application of that 
epithet to the Whigs. He was sincere^ and in- 
stead of frightening himself as he grew older, he 
became more decisive; and having boldly at 
one time declared he had not made up his mind 
to shorten the duration of parliaments, he* as 
frankly avowed afterwards, that he was a convert 
to that species of Reform as part of the means of 
diminishing the corruption which had brought 
the Siimma Rerum to stake, f 

When we come to your Lordship's Whigs, we 

* tion ?' he replied, ' My dear Lord, the gout will dispose of 
' me soon enough to prevent me from feeling the consequences 
' of this infatuation. But before the end of this century, 
' either the Parliament will reform itself from within, or be 

' reformed with a vengeance from without.' — " Pythonic 

speech, speedily to be verified." 

Delightful dialogue ! which the Earl of Buchan made public 
either to claim some share of Pythonic praise, or to help me 
to an argument against his brother. — The infatuated doting on 
the imperfections of our pretended constitution, is worth any 
money, and will be recollected by and by. 

♦ See his Answer to the City Address, May U, 1770. 

t See his Speech, April 30, 1771. Life of the Earl of 
Chatham, vol. ii. chap. xl. 



73 

iiftd repeated libels on the House of Commons; 
In the Speech before quoted, Mr. Fox said, *^ we 
have now indeed, a form of government, consist- 
ing of King, Lords, and Commons' House of 
Parliament ; but not a government consisting 
of King, Lords, and the Commons, Representa- 
tives of the People of Great Britain.— Z? is a 
Government in zvhich the power of the People is 
nothing,*'^ 

Mr. Grey said on the occasion, before referred 
to, that he expected no Reform whatever from 
the House of Commons, and that Reform must 

♦ Speech, Commons* Debate, 4th January, 1798. 

" Mr. Fox, in a speech of several hours," says Mr. Burke, 
" urged the referring to a committee the libellous impeachment 
of the House of Commons, hy the Association of the Friends of 
the People ;" Mr. Burke adds, that Mr. Fox's purpose was, 
'' to discredit Parliament as it stands; to countenance leagues, 
covenants, and associations for its further discredit ; to render 
it perfectly odious and contemptible." He goes on, " Mr. 
Fox and these gentlemen have for the present been defeated; 
but they are neither converted nor disheartened. They have 
solemnly declared, that they will persevere until they havp 
attained their ends ; persisting to assert, that the House of 
Commons not only is not a true Representation of the People j 
but that it does not answer the purpose of such Representation. 
Most of them insist that all the debts, the taxes, and the bur- 
thens of all kinds on the people, with every other evil and 
inconvenience which we have suffered since the Revolution, 
have been owing solely to a House of Commons which does 
not speak the sense of the people." — See Letter to the Duke of 
Portland, Articles 43, 44. 



74 

come from the people by perpetually meeting in 
bodies. Add to this, that the secession of the 
Whig leaders in 1797 was notoriously for the pur- 
pose of diminishing the authority of the House, 
and to operate upon that House by means of the 
public, who were to be convinced by the secession, 
that Mr. Fox and his friends thought no good 
was to be obtained by attending a House so con- 
stituted. — " But you stay away because you knaw 
you cannot obtain a Parliamentary Reform, Aye ? 
But you do not expect to be able to persuade 
the House of Commons to commence this work.** 
— " Why no, not by my speeches certainly ;** 
*^ and yet I think they may be persuaded.**^ — 
*^ How ?" — " By the public.*** — These are Mr. 
Fox*s own words. 

In the same speech, in which that leader owned 
he staid away, as a measure which might perhaps 
produce Parliamentary Reform, he informs us, 
that he was called factious for so doing. Mr. 
Fox at that day used the very language to which 
the present representative for Westminster must 
feel himself obliged to have recourse. " I can," 
said Mr. Fox, ^^ please my adversaries in no 
" way. They say there is mischief in my staying 
" away, and they accuse me of mischief in my 
" speeches. They are neither pleased with my 
" presence nor my absence.'* 

♦ Fox's Speech, 4th Jan. 1798. 



But in truth, all the speeches that Sir t. Bur- 
dett could ever make — or all the resolutions of 
Westminster Reformers, cannot be half so decided 
an effort to bring the House of Commons into 
disrepute, as the secession of the great Whig 
leader and the great body of his friends in 1797. 
They are the very Spartans of the comparison— 
what we have said they have do7i€ — when it is 
dear, "^ that a national deliverance can only be 
** effected by a just and constitutional interference 
" of the people, under these circumstances there 
"is an actual necessity for their interposition; 
" which will, and which alone can justify an ap- 
" peal to the people by secession.** — So said a 
Whig Reformer.* 

Having shown how much countenance the 
" hot undisciplined Reformers,'* *^ libellers of 
Parliament,'* now in Westminster, may derive 
from good authority — good Whig authority ; I 
now come to the charge of our being Revolu- 
tionists, — The harder the words used against us, 
the better are we pleased — for the less they will 
be thought to apply. — Your Lordship has en- 
deavoured to fix upon the body of the Reformers 
that reproach which the Whig who seconded 
Mr. Lamb threw out against Mr. Hobhouse.— 
Mr. Evans supported his charge by telling a 
downright falsehood — forgive the word — ^your 

* See — The Secession from Parliament Vindicated, by the 
Rev. Christopher Wyyill^ 1799. 



76 

Lordship has nothing to do with the person who 
told it- — he hinted that Mr. Hobhouse was a 
friend of the French, and said he had called the 
.Victory of Waterloo the " Carnage of Mont 
St. Jean/' Mr. Hobhouse showed that the ex- 
pression, though a simple fact, had never been 
used by him, but had been used by another 
person 5 and he also stated that he was surprised 
at such a charge of Revolutionary principles 
coming from Whigs — who were always talking of 
the Revolution — whose whole merits were con- 
fined to their share in the Revolution — and who 
had no other rag to cover their nakedness. — 
Mr. Hobhouse might have added, that the Whigs 
had borrowed a poor stale'device from their former 
opponents. — Hear Mr. Fox, — " I cannot," said 
he, " state any thing in this house in favor of 
a Parliamentary Reform, without his telling me 
I afford encouragement to the French.*'* When 
Mr. Evans had been obliged to retire in conse- 
quence of the general indignation expressed at 
his falsehood, Mr. Lamb supplied his loss by 
still continuing the " Revolutionary" charges 
against his opponent : but what might be par- 
doned to the pitiable situation of a candidate 
who was bound by advertisement to find some- 
thing to object to in the principles of Mr. Hob- 
house, is not so excusable in your Lordship, 
especially when you extend this intended re- 

♦ Parliamentary Debates, as above. 



77 

proach to a large body of your fellow country- 
men. — It is really disgraceful for a man like 
Lord Erskine to chime in with the common 
abuse levelled against the Reformers by the 
wretched hirelings of the courtly press. — You 
know that a certain portion of the political 
actors, and talkers, and writers in this country, 
have, at every period since the Revolution, been 
constantly charged with being Revolutionists — 
you well recollect the time when yourself and 
your friends were the Jacobins, the Levellers, the 
Revolutionists of the day, terms now applied by 
Mr. Perry to his Westminster fellow-citizens.— 
You should be aware that the application of 
such epithets is become ridiculous and unpar* 
donable, except when proceeding from some 
regular Court organ, whose folly is official. 

Your Lordship must have been shouting by 
the side of Mr. Sheridan when he said, " We are 
friends to Reform ;" a phrase which, it seems, is 
hencefoi'th to he deemed synonymous zvith Revolu* 
tionj^ The miserable alarmist who wrote the 
Pursuits of Literature, in his strictures on the 
Radical Reform of Mr. Fox, found a Greek pas- 
sage directly to his purpose, and charging the 
Whig leader with wishing entirely to subvert the 
State. f — Was it not Edmund Burke who exhi- 
bited fifty-four articles of impeachment against 

* Speech, Jan. 4, 1798. 
t Dialogue IV. 



78 

the Right Honourable Charles James Fox ?* and 
did not Edmund Burke make it one of his articles 
of impeachment, that at the first meeting of the 
*^ Friends of the Liberty of the Press," Mr. Ers- 
kine took the lead in the name and authority of 
Mr. Fox, and had thanks for his defence of Paine y 
which amounted to a complete avowal of that Jacobin 
incendiary. "^ 

The whole of the latter charges against 
Mr. Fox in that famous Letter, tend to prove 
that Mr. Fox and his Miy friends having sup- 
ported the scandalous charges and indefinite pro- 
jects of this infamous libel from tlie friends of the 
people ^\ having by every art kept alive a spirit of 
disaffection against the very Constitution of the 
kingdom^ || and attributed all the public misfortunes 
to that Constitution y it was absolutely IMPOSSIBLE 
but that some moment must arrive in zvhich they 
would be enabled to produce a pretended Reform 
and a real Revolution, In fact Mr. Fox did say 
that popular resistance to the House of Commons 
was a question of prudence. — " With respect to 
*' the doctrine, he expressly declared, that in his 
" opinion, not only the King may incite the 
*^ people to resistance — that not only the Lords 

* See the Title—" A Letter from the Right Hon. Edmund 
Burke to His Grace the Duke of Portland, on the Conduct of 
the Ministry in Parliament; containing fifty -four Articles of 
Impeachment against the Right Hon. C. J. Fox." 

t See Article 14. % Article 45. j| Article 46. 



79 

*^ may incite the people to resistance — that not 
" only the House of Commons may excite the 
" people to resistance — but that the measures of 
•^ the three branches of the legislature may jus- 
" tify the people in resisting the government."* 
Oh, my Lord ! we have consolation upon con- 
solation, as far as it can be derived from autho- 
rity. — We are not to be frightened with words 
that break no bones — we have not been called 
Revolutionists half so often as Mr. Fox, Mr. She- 
ridan, Mr. Grey, Mr. Courtney, Mr. Lambton, 
Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Francis, Mr. Taylor, and, 
though last, not least in the list of those who 
have despised the shame of calumny, the Ho- 
nourable Thomas Erskine.^— ^What said the HO- 
NEST Man, the popular Whig of ninety-two ? — 
" Against the prevalence of both extremes (Re- 
** publicanism and Toryism) there only exists 
" one remedy : — it is to invigorate the Demo- 
** cratic part of the Constitution ; it is to render 
" the House of Commons so honestly and sub- 
^* stantially the representative of the people, that 
" Republicans may no longer have topics of 
" invective, nor ministers the means of cor- 
" ruption.^f Think a moment, and you will 
see the extreme injustice, nay, more, the ex- 
treme absurdity of fastening the epithet Revo- 
lutionist upon those against whom no other 

* See Parliamentary Debate, Dec. 3, 1795, 
t Letter to Mr. Pitt, &c. p. 33. 



80 

crime can be charged, than the unwearied agi- 
tation of what you call a hopeless question.— 
This may be as your Lordship says it is, and 
says it in capital letters, FOLLY; but it is surely 
a little too hard to threaten such folly not only 
with the critic, but with Jack Ketch. However, 
I thank you for the w^arning, for, believe me, I 
am much of Dryden's way of thinking :— 

" To die for treason is a common evil, 

" But to be hang'd for nonsense is the devil." 

Until, however, you convince me, that there 
is any penal statute against this agitation, I shall 
persevere"; and shall take the liberty to think, that 
the question is not altogether so hopeless as you 
seem to imagine. For, the cause is now in the 
right hands. It is in the hands of those whom 
it most concerns. It is in the hands of those 
who never can have any wish or interest to 
abandon it. Any separate body of politicians 
may have other subjects to divide their atten- 
tion; but, with the people, the restoration of 
the due control of the people must, necessarily, 
be the sole object of all their endeavours. It is 
not the weapon of a few; it is the aim of all. 
And if your Lordship magnanimously pro- 
claimed, that you would stick by " the weather- 
beaten remnants of the wreck* of the Whigs of 

* See " A View of the Causes and Gonseqtiences of the 
present French Wisu-." 



81 

England," you can hardly quarrel with those 
who, to the last, adhere to the people of Eng- 
land, however hopeless may be the struggle, 
however prudent may be the retreat. 

Before I drop this part of the subject, I mean 
the revolutionary charge, I must be allowed to 
say, that your Lordship does not act fairly in 
mixing up the Westminster and other radical 
Reformers with those who were driven to excesses 
by the distress of the times. You must surely 
be aware, that the manufacturers did not rise in 
order to obtain Parliamentary Reform, and that 
the discouragement given by the Westminster Re- 
formers, and by Sir F. Burdett to the proceedings 
of the actors at Spa-fields and elsewhere, has 
been made a matter of charge against them by 
Mr. Cobbett and Mr. Hunt, individuals whose 
authority must now have some weight with your 
Lordship's Whigs, since your forty -years friend, 
Mr. Perry, borrows a leaf from the one to revile 
his Westminster fellow-citizens 3 and the Whig 
candidate stood on the same board with the other 
at the late election. 

But here again I cannot resist the temptation 
to refer to sound opinions, respecting the pro- 
ceedings of such petitioners for Reform as may 
have acted with less caution than was expe- 
dient. In your present pamphlet you tell us, 
that the bolder Reformers, in contradistinction 
to the Whigs, '* appointed delegates in all parts 

G 



m 

" of the kingdom, and organized a general 
^^ system of correspondence, in terms so cri- 
" minally and dangerously licentious, that their 
" papers were seized by (Mr. Pitt's) govern- 
" ment, and a few amongst them, selected as 
*^ their leaders, were taken into custody by war- 
" rants from the secretary of state."* Your Lord- 
ship then proceeds to state the merits of the 
Whigs in stepping forward to defend those who 
had drawn themselves into this dilemma, and had 
awakened the just vengeance of government. 

In the first place, I find that when you wrote 
of the proceedings of the government just after 
they had occurred, you did not call the bolder 
Reformers '* criminally and dangerously licen- 
tious;" no, you have this phrase, '^ the honest, 
but irregular zeal of some societies, instituted for 
the Reform of Parliament, furnished a seasonable, 
but a contemptible pretext' \ for the arrogant in- 
terference of government against French politics. 
But here comes the strangest part of the refer- 
ence, by which we see, that so far from the go- 
vernment having been incited by this honest and 
irregular zeal of the bolder Reformers, it was the 
Whig Reformers, and Mr. Grey at the head of 
them, that gave the first alarm and excuse to 
the ministers. Your Lordship's words are clear 

* Defence, &g. pp. 10, 11. 

t " View of the Causes and Consequences/' &c. pp. 1 1 
and 12. 



SB 

as crystal ; you say, '' These irregularities and 
" excesses were, for a considerable length of 
'^ time, wholly overlooked by the government. 
" Mr. Paine's works had been extensively and 
'' industriously circulated throughout England 
" and Scotland : the correspondencies, which 
" above a year afterwards became the subject of 
" the state trials, had been printed in every 
" newspaper, and sold without question or in* 
*^ terruption in every shop in the kingdom ; 
*^ when a circumstance took place, not calcu- 
" lated, one would imagine, to have occasioned 
"any additional alarm to the country, but 
" which (mixed with the effects on the public, 
*^ from Mr. Burke*s first celebrated publication 
" on the French Revolution) seems to have 
^^ given rise to the king's proclamation, the first 
^* act of government regarding France and her 
" affairs. ..... A few gentlemen, not 

<^ above fifty in number, and consisting princi- 
'^pally of persons of rank, talents, and charac- 
*' ter, formed themselves into a society, under 
" the name of * The Friends of the People.' " 
You then proceed to state the legal object of 
the society, a Reform in Parliament : and after- 
wards go on — 

" Nevertheless, on the very day that Mr, 
** Grey, at the desire of this small society, gave 
" notice of his intended motion in the House of 
" Commons, ther^ was an instantaneous mur- 

G 2 



84 

**- mur amongst ministers, as if a great national 
^' conspiracy had been discovered. No act of 
'^ government appeared to have been in agitation 
*^ before that period, although the correspon- 
" dencies before alluded to had, for months, 
'^ been public and notorious, and there was 
^^ scarcely an information, even for a libel, upon 
*^ the file of the court of King's Bench. Never- 
*' theless, a council vi^as almost immediately held, 
^^ and his majesty was advised to issue his royal 
" proclamation of the 21st of May, 1792, to 
*' rouse the vigilance and attention of the ma- 
" gistrates throughout the kingdom, to the vi- 
" gorous discharge of their duties.'** 

Thus, my Lord, it was 7iot the Reformers of 
the corresponding and constitutional societies, 
that brought the alarm upon the nation, and 
the vengeance of the crown upon themselves; 
it was Mr. Grey and bis fifty Whig persons of 
rank, talent, and character, that caused the 
explosion. And j^^ou now come to take merit 
for yourself and for your Whigs, because you 
defended the above Reformers, who, according 
to your own account, written just afterwards, 
would probably never have been attacked but for 
yourselves. I have, however, nothing to do at 
this moment with the merits of the Whigs. I 
only wish to prove, that those who adopt popu- 

* " A View," &c. pp. 12, 13, 14. 



$5 

Jar politics, and particularly Reform politics, 
always have been called Revolutionists, and that 
your Whigs vt^ere called and thought so more 
than any others. Aye, were thought more dan- 
gerous than the bolder Reformers. And I have 
proved it. 

It is, besides, hardly decent in your Lordship 
to say, that you gave up your lucrative business 
to defend the Reformers.* Let me ask you, did 
not that defence make your business more lucra- 
tive? 

T think, there is now little need of entering 
farther on the subject of the heat or want of dis- 
ciplincy or of the Revolutionary character of the 
Westminster Reformers. And I fancy, there- 
fore, that I have said enough respecting the 
first proposition, contained in your simile of the 
bark and the fever, namely, that, owing to the 
Westminster Reformers, the sound sense of the 
country has been for a time overpowered. 

I now come to the second proposition, name- 
ly, that the result of the Westminster Election 
shows, that the '^ sound sense of the country is 
beginning to return again." 

If I have been at all successful in showing, 
that a person, calling himself a Whig and a Re- 
former, and, more than all Whigs and Reformers, 
Lord Erskine, has no possible pretext for saying, 

* Page 1 1 of tbe Defence. 



86 

tlmt the Westminster Reformers are mad, and 
have made the country mad, I shall then have 
the less difficulty in proving, that the same 
person has still less pretext for proclaiming the 
result of the Westminster election as a symptom 
of returning sanity. 

Your Lordship, indeed, has not confined the 
assertion to a simile, for you actually declare, 
that the rejection of Mr. Hobhouse, and the 
return of Mr. Lamb, '' if turned to a proper 
'' account, by persons of all parties and opi- 
*^ nions, may be considered as one of the most 
" favourable events, for securing the tranquil- 
*^ lity, and advancing the prosperity of the 
^' country, that has occurred since the consti- 
'' tution was renovated and consecrated by the 
" Revolution.'' 

I dare say, that neither of the candidates 
thought they were contributing to so magnifi- 
cent an exploit ; and I feel persuaded, that Mr. 
Hobhouse, if he has the least spark of patriot- 
ism, will think the loss of a seat in the House of 
Commons a mere trifle in comparison with hav- 
ing played even the unsuccessful part in so aw- 
fully important a drama. That he should have 
sealed with his blood, though rather with the 
spirit of a combatant than a martyr, a third 
charter of British freedom, cannot but be con- 
solatory to such of his friends as may lament 
the fatal error in his choice.of a side. 



87 

But, seriously, my Lord, can you be ac- 
quainted with a single circumstance relative to 
the Westminster election, when you hail the re- 
sult of it as an event so auspicious ? 

If the defeat of Mr. Hobhouse be so truly a 
subject of congratulation, the objection must lie 
either against that gentleman, or against the 
principles of which he is supposed to be the re- 
presentative. As to the first, perhaps, it may 
be a sufficient answer to say, that the Whigs 
themselves professed from the hustings, that it 
was not their original intention to oppose Mr. 
Hobhouse; nor am I aware that (squibbing 
apart) any of the party, during the whole con- 
test, pretended to state a single objection to 
that gentleman. Even your Lordship has for- 
born to hint any thing to his disadvantage. In- 
deed, it was publicly asserted, and I have never 
heard it contradicted, that at the time it was 
generally supposed Mr. Kinnaird would have 
been selected as candidate for Westminster, se- 
veral of the leading Whigs of Westminster de- 
clared, that, although they were not inclined to 
support Mr. Kinnaird, they would support Mr. 
Hobhouse. The names mentioned were Mr. 
Wishart, Mr. Perry, and Mr. James Macdo- 
nald ; of whom the first may be considered the 
representative of the remnant of the Foxites in 
Westminster; the second, as the organ of the whole 
party; and the last, tl|e acknowledged head of the 



88 

Romilly committee^ It is perfectly true, that 
when Mr. Kinnaird had withdrawn himself, the 
Whigs then found their objections would affix 
just as well to the next comer. The removal 
of the immediate eye-sore, only left them 
free to cast their angry glances at the object 
next brought forward, and placed by the same 
hands on the same eminence. The unanimity 
prevailing amongst the Reformers at the public 
meeting of November 17, 1818, and the refusal 
on the part of Lord John Russell to allow his 
name to be employed in opposition to them, 
seem to have softened the attempted hostility of 
the Whigs into a neutrality, which they preserved 
with a sullen air of discontent, almost to the 
last moment. But it is certain, that no personal 
objection whatever was at any time made to Mr. 
Hobhouse. One or two smart and ingenious 
attempts were indeed made in '* The Chronicle'^ 
to draw him into a confession of faith; but not 
even when the sword of controversy w^as drawn, 
and the scabbard of shame and decency thrown 
avi^ay, by the honest polemics of '' The Chroni- 
cle,'" was any specific charge against the charac, 
ter of Mr. Hobhouse, independent of his poli- 
tics, ever adventured by his opponents. I should 
fancy that your Lordship would have found no- 
thing to say against him had he stood on the 
other side of the hustings. 

Certainly the objection,, then, would appear 



89 

to attach to his presumed principles. In fact, 
Mr. Macdonald, in the requisition to Mr. Lamb, 
publicly stated that the reason for requesting 
him to come forward was, because Mr. Mac- 
donald and his friends objected to the principles of 
Major Cartwright and of Mr. Hobhouse. What 
were the particular principles of Mr. Hobhouse 
to which the Whig gentlemen objected, they 
never condescended to state to the public; and, 
indeed, so far from having any thing to object to 
in those principles, the Whigs, through their 
organ the Chronicle, declared, after the election, 
that it was unfair to say that Mr. Hobhouse had 
any principles at all upon Reform.* 

I have before touched upon the opinions re- 
specting Reform of Parliament, publicly professed 
by Mr. Hobhouse on the hustings, and have 
shown how bold it must appear in a Whig to 
attack those opinions unless he premises that he 
has renounced all the notions formerly enter- 
tained by his party as to the PARAMOUNT IM- 
PORTANCE OF REFORM. Mr. Hobhouse appeared 
as the decided opponent of his Majesty's present 
ministers. The Whigs could hardly say, and 
they will hardly let your Lordship say, that they 
objected to Mr. Hobhouse on that score 5 but 
Mr. Hobhouse appeared as the advocate of the 

* Chronicle, March 11. It may be some consolation to 
Mr. Hobhouse to recollect that the charge brought against 
Mr. Fox's reform was just the same — it was called indefinite. 



90 

PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE OF REFORM, and I 
do believe that this is the principle to which 
your Lordship objects, and which you think it 
of such national advantage to have for a nioment 
defeated in Westminster, strange as such an 
objection must be from a member of the society 
of the Friends of the People. I believe, indeed, 
that had the Westminster Reformers and Mr. 
Hobhouse not thought Reform of such para- 
mount importance as to make it necessary to 
expose that party combination by which it had 
suffered such cruel assaults, the mere presumed 
principles of Mr. Hobhouse would not have 
brought down the vengeance of the Whigs, es- 
pecially when they thought their blow had so 
little chance of being effectual. Mr. Lambton 
kindly confessed that the Report of the West- 
minster Committee had been the sole cause of 
the nomination of Mr. Lamb : the honest frank- 
ness of youth and anger made him forget that 
his coadjutor, Mr. Macdonald, had put that 
nomination to the charge of the obnoxious prin- 
ciples of Mr. Hobhouse. The Chronicle, too, 
made the same profession, and attributed the 
opposition to Mr. Hobhouse solely to resentment, 
and to a resolution on the part of the Whigs to 
vindicate their honor. It went, indeed, the 
honest length of saying, " that the Whigs were 
fond of liberty, but they v/ould not purchase 
even liberty at the expense of their honor. ^"^ Candid 



91 

confession ! and one, which if you read interest 
for honor, may pass for an incontrovertible, 
immutable truth of all the political parties that 
ever distracted a state. 

The Whigs, and your Lordship, may perhaps 
say that the objectionable part of the principle 
of the Westminster Reformers, and of Mr. Hob- 
house, is that part which teaches them the 
necessity of decrying all party connexions, and 
of recalling public men to a sense of their pre- 
sent duty, by laying before them the record of 
their past professions : but this is rather the 
practice than the principle^ and Mr. Lambton 
was much more honest than Mr. Macdonald in 
avowing the fact that the reason why the Whigs 
came forward with Mr. Lamb, was not for the 
sake of establishing any great public principle ; 
was not to produce any great national good ^ but 
was solely to satisfy their wounded pride, or to 
convince the world, as Mr. Perry said, that 
though they loved liberty, they would not pur- 
chase even liberty at the expense of their honor. 

What the Whigs call their honor, it is, alas ! 
very difficult to divine. This quality, like the 
Constitution of the country, as it resides we 
know not where, and consists in we know not 
what, may be unconsciously attacked, or gra- 
tuitously defended ; but the nation at large, who 
do not participate in those delicate feelings, and 
know of no private honor independent of public 



92 

principle in any set of politicians ; the nation, 
I say, did not and will not understand why those 
persons who have for years been expressing their 
conviction that the king's ministers were ruining 
the country, should come forward to thwart an 
individual, and a body of their fellow country- 
men, who had just been exerting themselves 
successfully to the confusion and discomfiture of 
the ministerial influence in the metropolis. The 
nation did not and will hot understand that 
Mr. Macdonald told the truth when he signed 
the assertion that the Whigs put forward Mr. 
Lamb upon principle ; but they give credit to 
Mr. Lambton for saying it was from passion. 
They believe him, and your Lordship must also 
believe him. 

Your Lordship, then, cannot congratulate 
yourself upon the result of the election, as having 
defeated any obnoxious person, or the advocate 
of any principles obnoxious to the party you 
defend, and we must search for some other cause 
for your delight. 

You say that the tranquillity of the country 
may be secured by this event. Never, perhaps, 
was such a consummation so ushered in. I do 
not suppose your Lordship had any hand in 
hiring the six hundred bludgeon men, who 
were arrayed at the command of Mr. Lamb*s 
Committee; but you must have heard of the 
exploits of those heralds of peace. To mere 



93 

mortal eyes, your Lordship's Whigs, at the 
election, appeared to be Saviours, who brought 
" not peace but a sword." * It is possible that 
you may have been deceived by the Morning 
Post, and your own Chronicle, into the vulgar 
and now abandoned error of thinking that the 
Reformers had hired a large multitude to commit 
violences 3 but I assure you, and challenge de- 
nial, that since the people have taken the ma- 
nagement of the election into their own hands, 
there has been no organization of force of any 
sort, much less such as formerly was arrayed, both 
by Whig and Tory, in Westminster.f Mr. Perry, 
during the election, talked of " the organized 
hired band of yellers." It was false — he knew 
it to be false. Not a sixpence was spent by the 
Reformers to obtain a false show of popularity. 

* See the proceedings in the Court of Requests, as given 
in the Times and other papers. The bludgeon men were 
hired by one Bond, a Bow-street officer, who was hired by 
some of the Committee; a Captain Prescott, and Mr. James 
Macdonald ; so said the agents in their indignation at being 
the sufferers. 

t The excellent Mr. Lambton was most indignant at the 
Whigs and Mr. Fox having been charged by the Report with 
committing murder in the contests for Westminster. " How 
*' atrocious ! only think, gentlemen, they said we committed 
" murder.'* The young gentleman was too angry to see that 
the Report, or rather a quotation in the Report, only said that 
during the struggles murder had been committed ; and so it 
had. The thing happened before Mr. Lambton was born, 
but it is nevertheless true. 



94 

It was reserved for your Whigs to renew their 
old practices -, to bring prize fighters and hired 
ruffians into the field. An honest Whig, in the 
Chronicle, up to the very last denied this fact, 
which had been notorious to every body before 
the Hustings for the last three days, and charged 
Mr. Hobhouse with denouncing the Whigs for 
this iniquity at the very moment he had encou- 
raged the people to murderous attacks upon the 
Whig gentlemen. Even Mr. Lamb so far forgot 
himself as to say in his address, that his opponent 
had inflamed his adherents to assault the unpro- 
tected female, and the unprepared passenger; 
but after Mr. Hobhouse had written his letter to 
the Chronicle,* and publicly renewed his charge 
of the Whigs hiring ruffians, and defied all the 
Whigs to prove that iniquity against the Re- 
formers, your Lordship may have observed that 
impudence itself has been silent, and a judicial 
proceeding f has confirmed the fact pubhcly 
proclaimed by Mr. Hobhouse, that the Whigs 
hired a large body of ruffians to impede the 
return of the Reformer, and that to the brutal 
ferocity of tlK)se ruffians must be attributed all 

* See Chronicle, March 6. 
t It is a Whig adoption, perhaps, but not a Whig inven- 
tion to make the prize-fighters pass for the people of London. 
Lord Bute, when minister, hired a number of these patriots to 
escort him to Guildhall, and was received much in the same 
way as the Whigs. — See the History of the late Minority/, 1765> 
chap. xi. p. 127, ' 



95 

the disturbances at the close of the poll— and 
you call this securing tranquillity. It is a strange 
beginning, at any rate; but I can moreover 
appeal to your own Whigs, whether they do not 
feel that so far from securing tranquillity, they 
have sowed the seeds of a dissension between the 
Reformers and themselves that will never termi- 
nate except in the total overthrow of the party> 
or the total extinction of the principle of Reform. 

When you talk of a great point gained, let 
me inquire what has triumphed. Is it a prin- 
ciple ? Is it a party ? No one will be so bold 
as to say that the return of Mr. Lamb secured 
any principle whatever. On the contrary, the 
whole proceedings of his supporters were one 
constant shuffle from beginning to end. It was 
said that he came forward on the principles of 
Sir Samuel Romilly : what were the principles 
of Sir Samuel Romilly ? in what code do we find 
them embodied ? but it is idle to talk of that 
virtuous man, who can be made ridiculous only 
by his absurd eulogists, and whose name was 
made use of on this occasion merely as a signal 
that those who had voted for Sir Samuel Romilly, 
might vote for Mr. Lamb : that was the meaning 
of Vote for Lamb on Romilly^ s principles. 

It was also meant to insinuate, that as Sir 
Samuel Romilly had been the opposition can- 
didate at the last election, so Mr. Lamb was the 
opposition candidate at this; and that Mr. 
Hobhouse was inclined to support the ministers. 



96 

No pains were spared to inculcate this opinion, 
by Mr. Lamb's canvassers and committee, and, 
in the early part of the election, many hundred 
voters were positively deceived by the falsehood 
of this honest election manoeuvre. The '^ glorious 
principles of the revolution" were resorted to for 
the same worthy purpose, as if Mr. Hobhouse 
was against the revolution. 

With the same candour it was spread about 
that Mr. Lamb was the 7^eal Reformer, and that 
Mr. Hobhouse intended to deprive many of his 
constituents, should he be returned, of their 
suffrages. The Whigs did not blush to disperse 
a hand-bill to this effect ;* but they themselves did 
this very thing during the election, and disfran- 
chised many hundred electors ; and Mr. Lamb, 
though he had before professed himself for 
triennial parliaments and householder suffrage, 
totally dropt even his professions on a topic 
which as it had been taken up, was let drop 
for election purposes. He knew nothing 
about the matter; but, at the same time, had 
the modesty to talk of Mr. Hobhouse*s explicit 
declaration as being unintelligible. At the 
latter end of the election, no more was said or 
placarded about Mr. Lamb's principles on Re- 
form or Revolution. We came to the honour of 
Westminster, and Mr. Hobhouse, who was be- 
fore charged with a wish to curtail the suffrage, 
was now accused with being an advocate of 

* See the Speeches on the first Tuesday of the last electioi>a 



97 

universal suffrage. In short, it would be the 
height of absurdity to say that any one principle 
has triumphed on this occasion. Towards the 
latter end of the election, it was hard to discover 
even whether Mr. Lauib intended to sit with the 
opposition, as the decency of his demeanor, 
under popular persecution, would have suited a 
court candidate; and, in his address of thanks, 
even the poor word, liberty, hacknied as it is, 
and one should have thought offensive not even 
to Mr. Lamb's ministerial supporters, was, either 
by accident or design, totally omitted. The 
triumph was given to the " cause of independence ;'^ 
a word still better suited to the undefined virtues 
of the Whigs, and indiscriminately used by their 
opponents.* 

Still less has any single party triumphed ; for 
your Lordship cannot live so totally secluded 
from all truth as not to know that Mr. Lamb 
owes his majority full as much to the supporters 
of the court, as to the supporters of the party. 
As your title page calls your defence a defence 
of the Whigs, I presume that you would pre- 
tend that the honor belongs, to the Whigs, 
although your Lordship's late practice would 
make it doubtful in whose success you would 
sincerely rejoice ; that of the opposition or of 

* Thus Mr. Sumner was called the old independent member 
for Surrey. 

H 



m 

tlie minister. Both may divide the prize j 
for, according to the rule of Joan of Arc, he 
who has shared the labour should share the 
glory. 

The whole organization which procured for the 
jfeotally unknown naval captain 4800 voters, was 
set at work for Mr. Lamb. All the engines of 
power, great and small, from the ordnance office 
to the select vestries, the parish officers; all were 
in activity. The nomination of Mr. Lamb was 
hailed with delight by the Courier, and that 
other faithful mirror in which we see the dirty 
faces of our court sycophants and slanderers. 
It is recollected by all who attended the hustings, 
that the whole array of collectors, and others, 
who were before the agents of Captain Maxwell, 
appeared for the Whig Candidate. It may be 
recollected, that when one of the speakers said 
that the appearance of Mr. Lamb might bring 
forward a ministerial candidate, the crowd ex- 
claimed. He is the ministerial candidate, I may 
challenge your Lordship to point out a single 
effort or artifice, which are usually supposed 
characteristic of court candidates, that were not 
resorted to by Mr. Lamb^s friends. If the first 
two or three days of the election were employed 
in persuading those who knew nothing of the 
transactions of the hustings, that Mr. Lamb was 
against the court, the whole of the latter part 
of the contest, when the first mean artifice had 



99 

been exhausted, was devoted to collecting the 
whole anti-popular force, — ^some of them the 
willing dependants, others the reluctant victims 
of power and corruption. 

The return of Mr. Lamb is not the triumph 
of the Whigs, and I will venture to assert from a 
dissection of the poll, that had a regularly badged 
and liveried court candidate been started, Mr. 
I^mb would not have polled fifteen hundred 
votes. Let him try again when there is only 
one vacancy. That will show the Whig force 
in Westminster. 

But if Mr. Lamb's return had been the fruit 
of Whig influence solely, I see not how your 
Lordship could possibly congratulate yourself 
upon such an event, produced by such means. 
You cannot know the circumstances of the case : 
that you suspect them might appear from that 
candid admission, " If upon the late election, 
** influences were exerted which the law prohibits, 
" I hope they will be detected and punished, and 
" a new election awarded ; but, beyond that, it is 
" useless and childish to complain." 

Iff — talkest thou to me of ifsy most noble Lord ? 
These are not the days when I would have gone 
to you for constitutional law j I would have 
willingly gone to the Erskine of 1793, when he 
said that the complaint was, " that the people 
" had no control in the choice of their represen- 
" tatives ^ that they were either chosen amidst 

H 2 



100 

^^ riot and confusion, and amidst bribery and cor- 
" ruption in the larger districts, or by the absolute 
^^ authority of a few individuals in the smaller.*' 
Your Lordship now seems to resolve all crime 
into detection, 

Deprendi miserum est. 

And now that the Westminster petition has been 
dropped for want of pecuniary means of carrying 
on an expensive suit before a corrupt tribunal, 
your Lordship will doubtless more than ever 
call aloud for the test of legal detection. — I say, 
however, that it is notorious to all Westminster, 
that influences were used ivhich the law prohibits. 
What was the Steward of Earl Grosvenor doing 
in Pimlico ? How many letters did an agent for 
the Duke of Devonshire write to dependants of 
that powerful house ? Ask an Irish Earl who 
might have been a peer, and therefore, perhaps 
was himself legally precluded from his very pro- 
minent exertions, in company with what noble- 
man's steward he canvassed ? — Why should my 
Lord William Russell have appeared repeatedly 
on the hustings together with other withered 
weeds, 

" Which had no business there/' 

Why, but that the Bedford tenants might know 
under whose flag to range themselves. Your 
Lordship, for ought I know, may not rank this 
interposition of agents of those belonging to the 
other branch of the legislature, under the " in- 



101 

fluences which the law prohibits." You may 
say, how do you know these stewards were 
agents ? I dare say that they were not ^ I dare 
say that they acted against their nobler masters' 
inclinations, and I should not wonder if they 
were to be turned away from their service. The 
Duke of Devonshire besides was abroad, and 
could not leave any one to interfere for him at 
elections; — of course not: he has not an agent 
in the world, and if one of his borough-holders 
had died, it would have been impossible to fill up 
the vacancy ! ! ! 

To all this I say, that the voters considered 
the applications as coming from the masters who 
could record and punish, and not from the mere 
servants who had nothing to withhold or bestow. 
The employment of the managers of such estates 
as are in the hands of peers of parliament to 
show which way the tenants should vote, is 
manifestly nothing less than an interference con- 
trary to the spirit of the law. But, here comes 
your Lordship's distinction, " It may not, in. 
" deed it cannot, always happen that every man 
" in Westminster, who pays to the public taxes, 
" has had leisure amidst laborious occupations, to 
*' consider the claims of candidates to distinction 
*V and preference. * Such persons may fairly 
" trust in the opinions, and repose in the wishes 
" of their benefactors, their employers, and 

* Defence, &c. p. J9. 



10^ 

" their FRIENDS; and it is not corruption in en- 
** lightened men, who can see clearly the interests 
*^ of their country, to use their influenae with pep- 
*' sons less qualified to investigate those sdb- 
" jects!" — Which, being interpreted, isasfollows; 
— How should a mechanic know any thing? the 
laws of his country give him a vote to be sure, 
but they intended it, like the penny to the school 
boy, not to be spent all in trash, not to be thrown 
away upon his silly inclinations; no, it is nothing 
but a little token or pledge to give ta a bene- 
factor, or an employer, or a friend, in return io^ 
favors received. It seems then we have been 
all wrong, and have misinterpreted the Bill of 
Rights; or, perhaps it is a misprint, like the 
omission of the negative in the seventh com- 
mandment ; and we ought to read, " Elections 
** shall not be free," the poor may have a WISH 
for one more than another, but he should give 
his WISH to the rich ; 

" Right, cries his Lordship, for a rogue in need, 
" To have a taste is insolence indeed." 

You think of these laborious voters, as Mrs, 
Malaprop does of young girls, and sagely en- 
quire, '^ What they can have to do with pre- 
ference and aversion." Your Lordship has 
already had the serious answer* to your elec4!ion 

* " And this direct recommendation to the one to bqy, 
" and to the other to sell his vote, — this recommendation of the 
" influence of terr4M^-<»*this recommendation to the one to 



103 

morality, which has often been practised I will 
allow, but which it was reserved for a Whig 
patriot, and a Whig Lord Chancellor to preachy 
A blush does indeed betray itself, for you say, 
" but whether I am right or wrong in this^ it, 
" always did and always must happen in popular 
" elections, unlessGod shall be pleased completely 
^^ to recast the nature and character of man.** 
How impious then were the Whig friends of the 
people, who assumed to themselves that which 
your Lordship says, belongs only to the divinity, 
and did pretend completely to recast the nature 
and character of the Englishman, by making 
" a vote not worth soliciting,'* At any rate as 
your Lordship has kindly owned that you may 
be wrong in defending influence, I do not see 
how it can be " childish** in us to complain of 
it ; and really the deferring the amendment to a 
new creation, the pious acquiescence in the pre^ 
sent imperfect condition of humanity, which 
makes your Lordship inclined rather to increase 
than diminish the necessary portion of moral 
evily may suggest to some one more ill-natured 

« suborn the perjurer, and to the other to commit the perjury, 
" comes from a person who calls himself a Parliamentary Re- 
** fornfier:^^Truly, this is sound Whig reasoning. The igno* 
'* ranee on the one hand, and the wisdom on the other, is 
" assumed merely to justify the perjury : — Truly, this is sound 
" Whig morality. And then it is asserted, that there is no 
" corruption in the transaction : — Truly, this is Whig honesty." 
— Reph/ to Lord Erskine, pp. 27, 28. 



104 

than myself, that your Lordship has forgotten 
there is a second, as well as an early childishness. 

As to the inutihty of complaint, that is our 
concern — were it only an amusement, it should 
be left to us ; for we have nothing else. We are 
not actors in the great political drama, we are 
only spectators — sitting too on the last and 
lowest bench : but, we have paid our money, and 
if we do not like the performers, we may hiss- — at 
least they thought so in France, and that too, 
under the old monarchy.* 

But a word more on influences prohibited by 
law. — What does your Lordship think of public 
breakfasts ? Do you laugh in our faces as Mr. 
Lamb did, and tell us that there is much " solid 
satisfaction in a breakfast?" 

Perhaps you will say that the Treating Act 
does not extend to voluntary feasts given on the 
part of the candidate's friends^ and perhaps 
Mr. Harrison, of the New Hummums, poured 
forth his tea and wine all in gratuitous libations, 
and out of pure love to the Whigs.— Prove 
agency, you cry, or it is childish to complain — - 
it is nothing that the invitations to these break- 
fasts were given by members of Mr. Lamb's 
family — it is nothing that they were given by 
those canvassing for Mr. Lamb — it is nothing 
that the voters positively understood that if they 

* " Ce monde ci est un oeuvre comique/' &c. &c. . . . . . 

J. J3. Rousseau. 



105 

voted for Mr. Lamb they would get a breakfast, 
and if they did not vote, they would get none. — 
This is not agency — this is only presumption — 
it is not detection. — A committee of the House 
of Commons has been known to reject even an 
entry in an innkeeper's book, debiting these 
treats to the candidate himself.* I know all 
this very well, my Lord — and I suppose the 
Westminster Electors knew it well enough when 
they abandoned their petition with the less re- 
gret, because their proofs were only moral evi- 
dences, sufficient to convince any honest man, 
and might have been voted frivolous and vexa- 
tious by a dozen corrupt, puzzle-headed quib- 
blers, chosen from that very body whom the 
Westminster Electors have attempted to reform. 
The same want of parliamentary demonstration 
may, perhaps, affect the acts of bribery, which 
became at last so notorious, that no less than 
four or five individuals offered themselves as vo- 
luntary witnesses of one single specimen of this 
approved model of Whig persuasion. 

In the late enquiry into the Chester election, 
the payment of the money, to the voter before 
the face of the candidate, was not held to be 
sufficient proof of bribery, although the friends 
of the opposing candidate adyised him to desist 
from, polling, as his election must necessarily 
have been secured by that illegal transaction: 

* At the Shrewsbury Election. 



106 

so that I imagine the Electors would have had as 
little chance before a committee as they have had 
before your Lordship, whose morality, upon your 
own confession, is much like that of Julius 
Caesar, who thought " a man who had been 
caught in adultery not a villain, but a bungler." 
In addition to the immediate influence before 
described, which the law does not prohibit, but 
which every principle of honour and generosity 
condemns, it is known to all Westminster, that 
the fear of offending the united Aristocracy pre- 
vented many hundreds from voting for Mr. Hob- 
house, who, neverthelesi", could not be persuaded 
fa give their support to Mr. Lamb. — Add to 
these, the great numbers rejected by the arbi- 
trary decision of the High Bailiff, and the greater 
number of those, whom shame of declaring 
their poverty prevented from appearing at the 
Hustings, to be exposed to the taunts of the Rate 
Collectors and rejected by the Bailiff, and your 
Lordship would find Mr« Lamb in a minority 
much more considerable than his present majo- 
rity. — Enquire of those who canvassed for either 
party, and you will then be able to discover on 
which side the wishes of the very great majority 
of the Electors were inclined. — More than the 
majority of Mr. Lamb were polled from the 
parish of St. George ; that is to say, from that 
part of the town directly subject to the influence 
of the Aristocraey. — And it is no exaggeration 



107 

to affirm, that of the seven thousand unpolled 
Electors, four-fifths, if freely consulted, would 
have declared for the Reformer, in opposition to 
the Coalition Candidate. — Your Lordship may 
ask why did they not come forward; but you 
should be acquainted with the many disadvan- 
tages under which the advocates of the popular 
cause must necessarily exert themselves at a 
contested election for Westminster. — Their voters 
are all volunteers — they cannot be driven to the 
poll- — they wait for company— they wait for a 
fine day — they wait for the latter days of the 
poll, when their votes may appear to them more 
valuable: in the mean time, terror aad eor-^ 
ruption, and solicitation of every sort, are vkm^ 
ceasingly at work — a, great effort is easily made 
by the trained bands in all the parishes, and the 
public offices are most active on the very days 
that the tradesman is most occupied. — The po.. 
pular cause is almost sure to be in a minority in 
the latter days of the week, and hesitation and 
despair may very naturally keep back very many 
men most devoted to their honest principles; an4 
thus produce a fatal eflfect upon the poll. 

In the present case, however, it is a fact which 
every man who canvassed for Mr. Hobhouse will 
support me in declaring, that the High Bailiff's 
decision as to the Poor's Hate, will, of itself, 
^uifficiently account foor the defeat of ihd fier 
f0pmi&rs. 



108 

That decision is manifestly contrary to reason 
and the spirit of the Constitution, as it puts the 
Election in a manner, into the hands of the Rate 
and Tax Collectors, as it opens a door to bribery — 
and as it deprives a man of his franchise, in some 
cases, for an accident which he could not fore- 
see j and in other cases, for an offence (if it may 
be so called) against which the law has provided 
another remedy, namely, distraint. 

Supposing, then, the Whigs alone had done 
this deed, is it for your Lordship to trim their 
withered bays, because the distress and poverty 
of the people have afforded them a temporary 
triumph over the people ? — This consideration 
alone, independent of all the '' influences" of 
'^ benefactors, employers, and friends,*' which the 
constitutional lawyer thinks so innocent and 
consonant to nature : this alone might have pre- 
vented a politician professing popular principles 
from congratulating himself on the result of the 
Westminster Election. 

That it was no subject of congratulation, 
might have been understood by your Lordship, 
from the voice of the country, expressed in the 
independent voice of those weekly and provin- 
cial journals placed beyond the influence of me- 
tropolitan corruption. 

More than all, it might have been understood 
from the unequivocal conduct of your Lordship's 
Whigs, who have never once broken silence, ex- 



109 

cept to betray their wounded feelings, and to 
pronounce a sentence of proscription and banish- 
ment* against those whom your Defence would 

♦ " State of Parties," Edinburgh Revieiv for June, 1818. 
One word on this extraordinary manifesto and this coldness. 
Can English legislators, the assumed representatives of the 
people, be accused of a greater crime than this Whig pleader 
admits his Whig clients to be guilty of ? A coldness to the 
popular cause ! ! ! What other cause is there in England, that 
a member of the legislature can honourably, can safely advo- 
cate ? The very slaves of the treasury-bench admit the popu- 
lar cause to be the pretext for all their law-making and law-^ 
breaking, and here comes a Whig and allows his friends to 
have felt an unfortunate coldness towards the people. A mis- 
fortune indeed, and one for which an English legislator de- 
serves to be hanged. But hear some more. It seems the 
Whigs found out, that they were not quite right in reserving 
all their warmth for their own interest; yet they would not 
commit the vulgar error of courting or deserving popularity.' 
By no means. The Whjg apologist tells us, that the party 
" cultivated more assiduously the esteem of the respectable portion 
of the community.'' Just for the present, we will not inquire 
who these august personages are, that sit apart, like Jove on 
his hill, and never mix in our low., common affairs, except 
to control them. The community, both respectable and dis- 
respectable, were, it seems, duly sensible of this amazing 
condescension. The apologist tells us, that they evinced theit 
tvillingness to return to their natural leaders; and he pronounces, 
in a style suitable to the long-suffering and loving-kindness of 
their unalienable lords and masters, that " there cannot be a 
doubt that this disposition will, as it ought, be met by correspond- 
ing kindness." 

If this tender suggestion had proceeded from the forgiving 
Autocrat of all the Russias, at the head of seven hundred 
thousand bayonets^ on the eve of quelling a Tartar insurrec- 
tion, the kindness would be imperial ; but for an insolent. 



no 

represent as having been driven from the field, 
and disabled for life.* 

Your Lordship would have done well to imi- 
tate your more prudent friends ; who thought 
of this " Result" as my uncle Toby did of the 
infant composition of Lipsius, " Wipe it up and 
say nothing of the matter.*' 

Your Lordship has told us what you think of 
the result of the election, I will tell you what 
we, that is, what the Rabble think of this nota- 
ble event. We do not pretend that no circum- 
stance since the Revolution can compare with it 
in importance, but we still think it of consider- 
able importance. We think it has decided the 
fate of the Whigs for ever, and that the " unfor- 
tunate coldness" which their manifesto owns 
them to have felt towards the popular cause, will 
be henceforward repaid by the most freezing in^ 
difference and contempt. We think that not 
even the spoilt children, nor even the lick-spit- 
impotent junta of little shuffling, busy, disappointed, jealous, 
di^ointed clubmen, without authority, without concert, with 
no principle which they dare to profess, with not even a name 
to which they can fairly pretend, — for such nonentities to issue 
their Ukaae, and with a Review for a Gazette, and a smaU 
critic for a Chancellor, to tell the whole nation of English- 
men that they are pardoned, is a piece of ludicrous presump- 
tion, quite worthy the assurance of this Solicitor against the 
people of England. 

♦ Chronicle for March 11.—" I( is not mereh^ to tfie princi-- 
pies of these men they object, it 19 to the mm themsdva^" These 
men are Sir F. B. and Mr. H. 



Hi 

ties of the party, will now venture to assume a 
denomination which has for many years been 
rejected as absurd and inapplicable to any set of 
men ; and which the late contest has rendered 
more odious, perhaps, than any title that ever 
designated the supporters of an antinational 
cause. 

We feel assured, that those who really intend 
to benefit their country will henceforward regu- 
late their opposition to the ruling faction in par^ 
Uament, not with a reference to the approbation 
or the direction of a party-leader, but with the 
avowed purpose of doing their duty by their 
constituents, and satisfying the just expectations 
of the people. We cherish some hopes, that th« 
day is not far distant when those, who, by their 
station and previous habits, are in possession of 
the fairest opportunities for action, will show 
that, by the honest propensities of a nature 
truly noble, they are such men as the nation 
would willingly see at their head, and would hail 
as their natural leaders indeed. For, believe me, 
my Lord, you and your friends misjudge the 
people most egregiously. They take no plea- 
sure in the discovery or the exposure of your 
frailties : how can they be interested in the dis* 
appointment of their own hopes ? where can be 
the consolation in confessing, that they have 
loved, and admired, and trusted in vain ? Your 
reputation for sincerity mu^t^ necessarily, involve 



112 

their character for discernment* to own that 
you have been false is an avowal that they have 
been abused. The truth has long struggled for 
entrance. They are affectionate and confiding, 
and have willingly borne partial neglect, rather 
than anticipate separation by hasty complaints : 
it is true, that doubts have, from time to time, 
been raised ; but they were not the suspicions of a 
tyrant or of a slave: they were the jealousies of 
a lover. They felt that your honour was their 
own^ and even, when you were below the hori- 
zon, they were willing to mistake the twilight 
for the dawn; nor was the grateful error ex- 
torted from them, until they were left in total 
darkness, and, by a long and patient experi- 
ence, they found that you had sunk to rise no 

more. 

And here, my Lord, give me leave to expos- 
tulate with you on the strange objection con- 
tained in your Defence, to the exception made 
by Sir F. Burdett in favour of certain individuals 
of the Whig party, and confining his censure to 
those only whom the cap might fit. You call 
this "puerile"* because the character and con- 
sistency of the Whig Party, in parliament, were 
directly invaded. Now I really do not under- 
stand your meaning; and, indeed, you are so 
entirely ignorant of the events occurring on the 
hustings, chiefly, I presume, from trusting to 

♦ Defence, p. 2L 



113 

the reports of your forty-years friend, that it is 
fitting to nnake every allowance for your miscon- 
ceptions. The fact stood thus. The Whigs, 
at Covent-garden, and in their daily complaints, 
attacked Sir Francis Burdett, for an unsparing 
censure of the whole party, with some of whom 
he had appeared to act cordially in parliament, 
and with making no exception in favour of 
anybody. Sir Francis, in reply, said, he did 
make an exception, and that he was willing to 
allow, that the best men in the nation were 
found amongst the Whigs, and that their excel- 
lent qualities were cramped because they be- 
longed to a party. So you see, my Lord, that 
if there is any puerility in this exception, the 
puerility belongs to the Whigs who called for 
it. Only see how hard and inevitable is the fate 
which you prepare for Sir F. Burdett : one of 
the horns of your dilemma must catch him. He 
gives his opinion publicly against the Whigs. 
The Whig defenders exclaim. What! a lumping 
censure, — without exception. All of us bad — 
not one to be saved ! By no means, answers Sir 
Francis ; I do make exceptions. 

Then comes the other Whig defender. 
" How puerile ! you say some are good, some 
are bad. You object to the party, but you 
make exceptions; how puerile ! ! " What would 
you have had Sir Francis do ? He gave his 
sentiments that, from past experience, no good 

X 



114 



whatever was to be expected from the Whig 
party : that their object did not appear a na- 
tional object, but a personal object : that their 
opposition might be, generally speaking, resolved 
into a struggle for place; and that he felt no 
more interested in the success of the Oiiis than 
in the defeat of the Ins, * 



* The definition of place-hunting, as given in the above 
quoted Whig manifesto, is as follows : " He only can be 
" charged with hunting after place, who assumes, for factious 
" purposes, principles that do not belong to him, or abandons 
" those which he had professed, when the avenues to office 
" are within his views." Very well ; try Mr. Fox by this 
rule. Mr. Fox's defenders say he was not seriously/ for Reform 
of Parliament, but only took up the subject for the sake of 
backing the people: now when he came into place with 
Grenville and Sidmouth, which of his old principles stuck by 
him at all ? Coming in under Grenville, who was pledged 
against Reform, he could not be for Reform ; and yet he had 
professed Reform. Nothing is more common than to hear 
of the disinterestedness and adherence to principle manifested 
by the Whigs, by staying out of office when they might have 
so often come in. How often they have sacrificed their in- 
terest to their principles we cannot tell, but we can tell that 
the only time they have been in power for fifty years, 
they egregiously sacrificed their principles to their interest. 
The two coalitions are given up by the candid, even of their 
own party, and now the question whether or not they would 
prefer being in or out of place, is pretty clearly seen by the 
manifesto which smooths down all possible obstacles to their 
ascent to power. The Whigs take credit to themselves for 
going out of place because they could not carry the catholic 
question ; but the manifesto says, " if they can carry the 



^ 



115 

Your Lordship may think that he took a 
wrong view on this subject ^ but surely there is 
nothing puerile in this opinion : it is far from 
the first time that the inexpediency, the mis- 
chievous tendency of party has been recognized 
and acted upon by a British statesman. When 
the disaffected Whigs joined the Tories to turn 
out Sir Robert Walpole, Mr. Shippen, a poli- 
tician, whom even his opponents admired, and 
whose name has been coupled with honesty by a 
great cotemporary poet, dropped at once his 

" catholic question, and effect a moderate and wholesome 
" Reform of parliament, the country will gain so much the 
" more. But no such point should ever be thought of as a con- 
" dition, sine qua non ; retrenchment and reformation of abuses 
"at hofne and abroad, ought alone to be reckoned the master 
" principle of the parti/.'* 

In 1798, the Whigs swore they would never come in without 
Reform : they dropped Reform between 1798 and 1806. 
In 1807, they swore they would not come in without eman- 
cipating the catholics : they dropped the catholics by the 
year 1818, and they laid down a " master principle,^' which 
will suit and be submitted to by any ^et of men in the world. 
After this, the modest pleader, with a bonhommie which he 
thinks he has communicated to his readers, says, " certain it 
is, that a hankering after place never ivas so little the failing of 
an opposition as in our times" 

Lord Erskine goes even farther, and says, that " the only 
" criticism upon the conduct of the Whigs that he ever heard 
" in the mouth of an enlightened and dispassionate man, was 
" that by going out in 1807, they did not attend to their first 
" DUTY ; the CONSERVATION OF their power." So much for the 
frst dut;y of a Whig. 

I 2 



116 



attack upon the minister, that he might not pla^^ 
into the hands of a selfish coalition. 

The motion for removing Walpole from the 
king's councils for ever, had been warmly sup- 
ported by the most distinguished patriots of the 
day — Sandys, Pulteney, Pitt, and Lyttleton; 
but Mr. Shippen " declared that he looked on 
^^ this motion as only a scheme for turning out 
** one minister and bringing in another ; that as 
'^ his conduct in parliament had always been 
*^ regulated with a view to the good of his 
" country, without any regard to his private 
" interest, it was quite indifferent to him who 
** was in and who was out; and he would give 
** himself no concern in the question.** At the 
conclusion of these words he withdrew, and was 
followed by thirty-four of his friends.* It will, 
I confess, not be in our time that thirty-five 
members of parliament will pledge themselves 
in so decided a manner to an indifference who 
is in or who is out, and show, by an overt act, 
their impartial contempt for both sides of the 
House ; and yet, even one of your Lordship's 
friends, another Whig defender, does own that 
it is within the sphere of possibility that a ^^ third 
party'* may arise, if ever our assurance that 
nothing will be done by either of the present 



Coxe's Walpole, chap 55, p. 656, vol. 1. 



117 

parties should become doubly sure.* The only 
difference between the learned reviewer and 
Sir F. Burdett, is respecting the precise period 
of the birth of this monster, which is to spring 
«p when the slime of Whig and Tory shall have 
duly overflowed and saturated the land. The one 
thinks the time is not come, and that it may be 
deferred till the Whigs come into place , the other 



** See the Edinburgh Review for June, 1818. Article, 
Stiate of Parties. — " Nor would there fail in these times to 
*' arise a third party for the interests of the people, if their 
" present defenders were to forget themselves when in office, 
*' and to league with the advocates of unconstitutional 
*^' measures." 

The pleader disposes of the people, on all occasions, in 
a very edifying way. They are to stick to their looms and 
ploughs in a prone and peaceful attitude ; or, if they look 
above for a moment, they must not feel any of the jealousies 
arising from past experience ; they must repose in faith, 
hope, and charity, and feel confident that something will be 
done when the Whigs come into power. When they do come 
in, then, to be sure, they ought to be closely watched ; and,,, 
says he, *' are pretty sure to be so;" but, not so fast, good 
PEOPLE, not watched by you, the watching is to come froni 
" those whom they have displaced.'* In other words, the party 
out are the fit monitors and correctors of the party in : the 
only earthly use of the people, is that they may have rhetorical 
defenders, and that whilst those who strive to keep places, 
employ, as their own property, the words Church and King, 
and government, so those who struggle to get places, may, 
by the courtesy of England, exclusively resort to all popular 
topics of declamation. 



118 

thinks it is. There is nothing puerile in the 
latter opinion, even if it be a mistaken one. 

Nor do I see how it is puerile to say, whether 
called upon or not, that the objection is to the 
principle of party generally from their collective 
conduct, and not to all the persons who compose 
that party. I doubt not, but that it would be 
very convenient for your Lordship's party to 
convict Sir F. Burdett of want of candour and 
discrimination ; but we can perfectly well under- 
stand him as well as you. We know very well 
what he means by saying that he is at all times 
ready to join those who appear willing to do 
good^ and that so far from feeling any rancorous 
animosity, which may prevent him from co- 
operating with the Whigs, he has often, indeed, 
much more steadily than any oiie man of their 
party, voted with them, and " will be happy 
to range himself under their banners, whenever 
they are inscribed with the sacred name of 
liberty."* The Whigs have, it is true, a very 
convenient method of quoting the good inclina- 
tions of individuals, never, perhaps, experienced 
by a single overt act, but which, from their 
general character, they may very likely possess, 
as a set-off against the faults of the party; but 
gurely we have nothing to do but with that which 
is and has been done; and it is very idle for 
some of the young men of the regiment to com- 

• Speech on the Hustings, March 1, 1819. 



119 

plain that we confound them with the actors in 
the coahtion of 1807. If the Whigs will talk of 
themselves as Whigs, will cry out " stick to the 
party," " look at the party," we have nothing 
left for it but to see what the party has done. 

Take one instance. The party divided very 
respectably near a hundred against the suspen- 
sion bill in 1817; and, notwithstanding the 
awkward embarrassment which Mr. Ponsonby 
confessed he felt in defending a law, which he 
said he regarded with a reverence amounting 
almost to superstition, the party did not then, 
as you, their defender, do now, say, that the 
king's ministers were on that occasion impelled 
to permanent abridgments of public liberty. On 
this account we give the Whigs the merit of this 
opposition, such as it was. But Mr. Ponsonby 
said, that he gave his cordial assent to the intro- 
duction of the measures recommended by the 
secret committee; and although he could not 
give his consent to the suspension of the Habeas 
Corpus Bill, yet *^ the communication made to 
*^ parliament had his perfect approbation, and if 
" he had been in the Cabinet, he would have re- 
" commended a communication of the very same 
*^ kind."* 

* Parliamentary Debates, Feb. 24, 1817. — Mr. Ponsonby 
also said, " that he wished to go every length which duty and 
" propriety wo uld allow, in strengthening the hands of go- 
" vernment on this occasion.*' 



120 

Be it recollected that this communication was 
that of the secret committee, and that upon it 
were founded four measures ; the first the sedi- 
tious meetings' bill, for the first reading of which 
bill Mr. Ponsonby voted, together with all the 
opposition then in the house except fourteen.* 

All England is now completely convinced, and 
a respectable minority of the opposition has since 
voted by implication, that the communication of 
the secret committee was founded chiefly on the 
word of hired spies and informers, convicted of 
perjury, and every base and enormous offence. 
Now if the body of the Whigs under Mr. Pon- 
sonby opposing the suspension bill, are to be 
praised 3 the body of the Whigs under Mr. Pon- 
sonby are to be condemned for supporting that 
secret committee, in whose report they had as 
great a share as the ministers; so Lord Castle- 
reagh said publicly in the House of Commons : at 
least they are to be condemned by those whothink 
that report was what it was called. — A Libel on 
the People of England. But here would come in 
one of the fourteen who voted against the sedi- 
tious meetings' bill,f exclaiming, " you are not 

* Mr. Ponsonby seems to have felt some small compunc- 
tion on the second reading of the seditious meetings' bill. Mr. 
Lamb went through thick apd thin. Lord Erskine was against it. 

t It was against the prototype of this bill, that the Whig 
club made their famous declaration, and form of association. 

*' We whose names are hereunto subscribed, calling to mind 

" the virtuous and memorable exertions of our ancestors, in 



121 

** fair to attack all the Whigs— you are not fair 
'^ to attack me, for I voted, and fourteen voted 
" against the bill/* It is clear that this must be 
very satisfactory to the consciences, as it is ho- 
nourable to the characters of the individuals ; but 
it does not save the Whigs, who must stand or fall 
by the leader and the body of the party. If a 
combination is good for any thing, it must be good 
vi^hen a great national principle is at stake ; if 
on these occasions the politicians do not hold 
together, it is idle to talk of party. The nation 
have nothing to do but to judge of the party by 
party acts; and to judge of individuals, by indi- 
vidual acts. It is indeed a very absurd expecta- 
tion, to suppose, that the Whigs are to have the 
benefit of all the good ever done by any one of 
their party, but are never to be blamed for any 
bad measure from which even one of their party 
was found to dissent. Nothing is more idle than 
to say, " But do you not think Lord Tavistock 
a very good man r" — Yes. " Well then he is a 
Whig." — Equally ridiculous is it to ask how it is 

*' all past ages for the public happiness and freedom of this 
" nation, do solemnly engage and pledge ourselves to each 
** other, and to our country, to employ every legal and con- 
^* stitutional effort to obtain the repeal of two statutes, the 
^' one entitled, An Act for the more effeaual preventing 
f seditious meetings and assemWies.^* This was about 1795, 
and in 1817, when according to the Edinburgh manifesto 
the Whigs were 130 in parliament, only fourken voted against 
tht bill, and the leader supported it ! ! 1 



that Sir Francis Burdett, who has voted so long 
with the Whigs, nay who has actually sat in 
one seat amongst them for so many years, should 
find fault with their proceedings. There is a 
wide difference between voting zvith a party^ 
SLndfor a party. Two men may travel the same 
road, but one may be on his way to build, and 
the other to rob a church. Sir Francis cannot 
help having voted with the Whigs, when they 
have opposed a vicious, and corrupt, and tyrannical 
system, but it does not at all follow that when 
he went into the lobby with the Noes, his wish 
should be to walk all the way with them through 
the dirt to Carlton House. 

The cause, however, of this complaint, is 
easily discerned — as the ministers have the mo- 
nopoly of power, their opponents think the mo- 
nopoly of popularity belongs of right to them- 
selves, and themselves only. — ^Thus can they 
overlook a little versatility or abandonment of 
principle, and even of party for the moment. A 
truly shabby fellow shall be pitied and protected, 
and the precedent be thought worth encouraging, 
for the sake of what the whole party may find it 
expedient to adopt hereafter : besides, any thing 
mean breaks a man's spirit and character, and 
qualifies him to wear with decent submission the 
party livery; but no such pity, no such pro- 
tection — no, not even toleration, for him who 
follows one steady rule of action, independently 



1^5 

ef all personal connexion : his very virtues are 
but robberies from those who have them of right, 
and who know how to wear them so sociably — his 
concurrence is treachery, his opposition is malice; 
if. he is silent, he deserts his duty — if he speaks, 
he spoils a project : — whether at ease or in action 
he is alike rebellious, and to be marked with the 
seal of reprobation. This is your choice : belong 
to a party — you shall be promoted, pushed, and 
caressed when living; and when you die, a statue 
shall reward your supple genius.— Rely on your 
own force, adhere to a national principle, and 
then prepare to be kept back, crushed, trampled 
upon, both by master and by slave — prepare to be 
reviled and insulted by those whose impotence 
confines them to slander and abuse : or should you 
meet with mercy, resign yourself to be amongst 
the number of wiseacres, alias purists, or of well- 
meaning , and not very clear-sighted persons, who 
labour under that unstatesman-like disease, " a 
tender conscience, or are tainted with the vanity 
of always thinking for themselves J' Such is the 
Whig manifesto against a tender conscience and 
independence — the words are from the above 
quoted article on the State of Parties,* which 
Mr. Brougham has the credit of having written, 
during the Westmoreland election, as Sir Richard 

* Edinburgh Review, June, 1818. — It is astonishing that 
such a man will consent to be used. — 



124 

Blackmore wrote his verses " to the rumbling 
of his chariot wheels.'* 

And now, my Lord, I shall take my leave, 
repeating the assurance with which I set out, 
that your Lordship never had, and never will 
have, such ardent admirers as those of my own 
class of life, who greeted your triumph on the 
glorious ninth of November. — To which, how- 
ever, I must add, that when your Lordship made 
yourself more than a party to, nay even a defender 
of, the iniquities practised at the late Westminster 
Election, you might expect some hollow thanks 
for the apparent generosity of such voluntary 
devotion; but you could not flatter yourself that 
not one of the four thousand electors of West- 
minster, on whose defeat you stept forward to 
congratulate your friends and the public, would 
not venture to remind your Lordship, that al- 
though the people may want foresight, they are 
not totally devoid of memory. — Nor could you 
forget that one of the weapons of controversy, 
lawful even in the hard hands of the vulgar, is 
the comparison of the past professions with the 
present doctrines of those by whom, at one time, 
they have been designated as a great and gene- 
rous nation, and at another, as " gangs of tur- 
bulent and almost distracted men."* 

You may, perhaps, in the opinion of your 

* Defence, &c. p. 28. 



125 

friends, have given some hard blows to the 
people — you may have driven back the assailants 
of the Whig post; but you have laid yourself 
open to attacks which your party must surely 
deplore ; and when your Lordship confesses that 
you leapt from the bed into the battle,* you 
might have recollected, that the Spartan, al- 
though victorious, was punished by his country- 
men for rushing naked into the field. 



Thus far had I written, and was about to 
wish you farewell ; but at this instant I receive 
your answer to the Replyer — and I hasten to 
peruse the codicil of that political testament 
wrhich you have lately indited as a last gift to the 
people of England.* 



Now, my Lord, you are fair game — My re- 
spect for your former character, and a wish to 
spare a crazy politician, who might have been 
induced by what he thought loyalty to his party, 
or to a party which he wished to show he was 
still attached to, in spite of many acts of infi. 
delity, prevented me from telling you the indig- 

* Short Defence, &c. preface. 



126 

nation excited amongst the people by your thus 
coming forward as a volunteef bravo against the 
Reformers of Westminster. 

But your Lordship has now chosen to adopt a 
tone such as shows you despise the usual allow- 
ances granted to age and former merits : you 
have chosen the weapons, and you must expect 
your antagonists to make such use of them as 
may be best suited to their purpose. 

Your Lordship declares you were '^ never 
more diverted in your life with any thing you ever 
ready'"^ than with sundry propositions of the 
Reply to you. — You tell us in the next page, 
that nothing can he more amusing'\ — in another 
place you are much entertained, and in other 
parts of your Answer you go on frisking and 
drivelling over every page, in order to convince 
the world, I presume, that although you have 
taken up this laughing mood late in life, you 
will make up for the delay by the vigorous and 
eager adoption of your late profession. — The gra- 
vity and eagerness with which you apply to your 
newly chosen employment, shall send you down 
like the Elephant on the Rope, as a worthy rival 
of the noble author who left his parliamentary 
pursuits to please the world with " Love in a 
hollow tree^ 

Never fear — if you want to be diverted, we 

* Answer, page 2. f Page 3. 



127 

wiil furnish you with the materials — ^you shall 
laugh ten times as much as ever 3 but do not be 
angry with us if some intruders should chance 
to be a party to the amusement: and if your 
Lordship shall find that you yourself have 
contributed to the national stock of harmless 
pleasure. 

Your Lordship is not content with the joke — 
with the laughable appearance presented by the 
Reply er — you have also thought it advisable to 
hint that he was not only certainly a humourist, 
but probably a drunkard; and this hint you 
convey in a vein of irony, such as may suit your 
infant excursions in the paths of pleasantry.* 

Allow me to congratulate you upon the feli- 
city with which you have thus '^ taken the high 
priori road,** and endeavoured to depreciate an 
anonymous letter, by declaring the correspon- 
dent to be drunk.— What has inspired your 
Lordship I will not presume to say, but after 
your adoption of such an extraordinary weapon 
of controversy, you will expect only a clear 
stage without any favor; and you must not be 
offended, if I tell you, in return for having 
brought forward this Helot of a Reformer, to 
provide mirth and instruction for the public, 

* " Here then. Sir, is a deliberate assertion, written, for 
" any thing I know to the contrary, in the early part of the 
" day."— See Answer, page 2. 



128 

that it is with a perfect stare of astonishment 
that we now see you attempt a merry mood 
for which you have hitlierto shown no sort of 
capacity: 

" And from the dregs of life think to receive, 

" What the first sprightly runnings could not give." 

It is not my purpose now to examine minutely 
the pretexts which you have put forth for ap- 
pearing in this new and amiable character — The 
profession of ignorance which you volunteer in 
the outset of your Answer, may be a protection 
for the argument, but not for the adversary; 
and if your Lordship had really no other means 
of information than such as were derived from 
the daily press during the Westminster Election, 
and more particularly that portion of it which 
you appear exclusively to have consulted — I 
mean the Chronicle — you were presuming a little 
too much on your name and station, when you 
volunteered your aid to the fallen forces of the 
Whigs. — Nothing is more distressing, than for a 
person thoroughly acquainted with all the de- 
tails of his subject, to have to contend with one 
who argues " ex plena ignorantia;" and all I 
can say to your Lordship, in reply to the 
greater part of your assertions, is — that they are 
founded on direct and absurd mis-statements, 
which never would have had the least influence 
with you, had you not been, as you confess^ 



*^ at a distance from London during the late 
*^ election for Westminster." ^ 

It is all in vain for any one to state those 
notorious iniquities which occurred on that oc- 
casion, if your Lordship is to come forward, 
and, with an air of the utmost ingenuity and 
naivete, is to say, " I know nothing of all 
" these things — Who did them? — When were 
*^ they done ? — mention names — I know nothing 
" of these matters — I dont believe any body 
" knows any thing of these matters." 

I say this is the amount of the denial v^^hich 
you have given to all the charges made in the 
Reply against the Whigs for their conduct at 
the late election ; and you have even gone the 
length of using the same argumentum ah ignorantid 
to prove there was no coalition between the 
Ministerial and Whig parties against the Re- 
formers ^ a fact which is notorious to every 
tradesman in Westminster. Your Lordship is 
iiot worthy a comment when you presume to 
throw a doubt upon a fact so clearly established, 
ftierely because no regular document of com- 
bination seems to have been drawn up between 
the prime minister and Mr. James Macdonald. 
What can be got by arguing with a man who 
either does not, or will not, know a fact passing 
tinder his nose? You refer the proof of the 
charged against the Whigs to the evidence to be 

* Answer, p. 1. 
K 



130 

brought by the petitioners against Mr. Lamb'is 
return. Although the petition had been dropt 
for want of money, three weeks before you pub- 
lished your answer. 

Bat before you come to this bold demonstration 
of your ignorance as to the general events of the 
late Westminster election, you take care to show 
that you are not acquainted even with the very 
conduct and professions of your own party on 
that occasion -, for you devote three or four 
pages to playing with that part of the Reply 
which says that Mr. Hobhouse^s speech, and 
the Report of the Committee, were the cause 
of the opposition to Mr. Hobhouse, and the 
consequent exposure of the Whigs. 

You put into capital letters, as an absurdity 
which tickled your fancy beyond all things, the 
assertion of the Reply, that Mr. Hobhouse's 
OWN SPEECH, AND THE REPORT OF THE COM- 
MITTEE, PREVENTED HIS WALKING OVER THE 
COURSE. Why, you silly man ! this assertion 
was made by the Whigs at the hustings, and 
also by the Chronicle; and if you will laugh at 
any body for it, you must laugh at the testy 
gentlemen who allowed a tavern speech, and the 
said Report, to put them into a passion, and to 
alter the line of conduct which they had resolved 
to pursue in Westminster. You are so ignorant 
that you absolutely appear not to know that the 
Whigs were resolved to start no body against 



131 

Mr. Hobhouse, and would never have done so 
but for the speech and the Report, which have 
excited your merriment. You appear not to 
know that the Whigs owned this themselves j 
nay, did more, for they made it the pretext, the 
excuse, for doing that which they otherwise 
would never, they said, have wished to do. I 
refer you to Mr. Lambton*s speech, and to the 
repeated articles in the Chronicle to this effect.* 
Your pleasantry on the presumed assertion of 
the Replyer, that Mr. Hobhouse's speech, and 
the Report, had " blown up at once into the air " 
a *^ great number of persons of rank and property, 
" who had contrived, for above a century, to 
*' impose upon the people as men of public 
" spirit and virtue," must be derived solely from 

♦ The Chronicle for March 11, after the election was over,^ 
reiterates the assertion, coupling with the Report and Mr. 
Hobhouse's speech, the countenance which Sir F. Burdett 
gave to the Report. Here, however, the Chronicle, as usual, 
argued upon a fiction of its own. Sir F. Burdett had never 
read the Report, when he took the chair at the meeting ; he 
could not hear it, at the Crown and Anchor, for it was sot 
all read there; and he never once gave his opinion upon it 
during his speeches on that day. Nor could Mr. Hobhouse 
offend in this particular; he had nothing to do with the 
framing of the Report ; he never alluded to it in his speech 
at the meeting, in terms indicative of his opinion — But his 
offence was, calling Mr. Fox a radical Reformer, and remind- 
ing the people that the opposition now did not dare to devote 
a single toast to Parliamentary Reform. 

K 2 



jour interpretation of the tleply, which attri- 
buted the contempt into which the Whigs had 
feillen to their conduct at the Westminster 
election, and which had been occasioned by 
what was said of them by Mr. Hobhouse, and 
by the Report. As to the gentlemen of ante- 
diluvian ages, whose public spirit and virtue of 
above a century you record, who are they ? I 
have already shown the absurdity of talking of 
the Whigs as a party existing in regular succes- 
sion, either as to principles or families, since 
the Revolution 5 and it is only now necessary to 
remark upon the recurrence to the usual Whig 
trick of assuming, as a notorious fact, what a 
little examination will show to be a ridiculous 
fiction. 

Your Lordship's memory is so short that you 
actually forget your own pamphlet when you 
ask the Replyer how he could *^ expect from 
" you a history of England commencing above 
^' a century ago.'* This is too bad. It was 
your Lordship who began, in the old Whig way, 
to boast of the Revolution of 1688, and to say 
that an attack on the modern Whigs cast into the 
shade the character of the Revolution itself, * Now 
it was perfectly fair in the Replyer to observe, 
that if you would claim for your Whigs the 
merit of what the Whigs did at the Revolution^ 
ke might fairly subtract from the merits of the 
* Short Address, &c. page 2i 



133 

said Whigs by showing what the ancient Whigs 
did not do at the Revolution. Here, however^ 
you are more a Whig than ever, and have ac- 
tually done the very thing which I have charged 
as a common practice against your party; for 
you say that if the managers of the Revolution 
acted ill ** they only dishonoured themsehesy and 
** did injustice to their country ; hut surely their 
** conduct could in no manner affect the characters 
^^ of men in another generation,^* This is exactly 
what we say; but you would make the rule 
apply only to the bad part of the conduct of 
your presumed political ancestors, and would 
have the benefit of all the good they were able 
to achieve, as your lawful inheritance. 

You must either make no more boast of the 
Revolution Whigs, or you must allow us to 
point out where they failed to merit the great 
praise you claim for them, in the first instance, 
and then for yourselves. On this point I have 
only to refer you to my former account of the 
true pedigree of Whig virtue. If you do not 
like my tree^ show where it is wrong, and do not 
you, a lawyer and a judge, complain of having 
to go back a hundred years. 

The Whigs, however, generally wish to make 
dat that there has been a regular transmission 
not <pn)y of riches and honors with their pur^! 
blood, but also of political virtue ; nay more, 
of public confidenee. Thus the young member 



134 



for Durham, from whom, considering his charac- 
ter, the people will bear a good deal of arrogance 
and absurdity without complaining, in his late 
Newcastle Fox speech, talked of certain people, 
*' whose principles had been regularly and faith- 
^^ f idly cherished from one generatioii to another. '\ 
Now, who the deuce are these people? It is 
strange enough that although all this happened 
in our time, we should know nothing of it. 

I do not wonder, however, that your Lordship 
has some objection to enquire into the past, 
when you do not condescend to inform yourself 
even of present transactions, and when you 
choose to represent yourself so amiably innocent 
of all experience in the wicked ways of the 
contemporary world, as actually to deride the 
Replyer, and to hint that he must be an habitual 
drunkard for supposing it possible that very 
honest well-informed men in private life,* should 
be very abandoned and dangerous political cha- 
racters. Indeed, Lord Erskine, this is too much. 
I do not wish to call you a canting hypocrite, 
though you have used much harder words to the 
Replyer ; but what will the world think of your 
pretended ignorance of a fact, which you, your- 
self, forgetting the absurdity you had committed 
a few pages before, admit in the subsequent 
part of your answer as a common moral phe- 

♦ Answer, page 3. 



135 

nomenon. For you tell the Replyer, that it is 
in political controversy only that you " wish to 
** believe him guilty of such a disgusting departure 
^^ from every principle of justice y' adding, ^^ per- 
** haps if I knew you, J might regard you as a 
^'private manJ^^ In this place, you very inad- 
vertently, no doubt, show your complete per- 
suasion of the existence of that common incon- 
sistency in human character, the belief in which 
you have before charged upon the Replyer, as 
a most diverting absurdity, perhaps committed 
in his cups. 

After such a specimen of the mosaic, parti- 
coloured, inconsistent materials, composing your 
answer, I doubt whether the world will be 
anxious to hear any more of a controversialist, 
who furnishes by accident in one place the re- 
futation of a deliberate absurdity in another. 
But I shall not let slip this opportunity of en- 
forcing the truth of the position taken up by 
the Replyer; a truth, the general recognition 
of which, is of the utmost importance, as a re- 
futation of that most injurious but common 
fallacy employed by selfish politicians to excuse 
their dereliction from public duty. It is notoriously 
too usual a trick to draw off the attention from 
public misconduct, by referring to the private 
qualities of the delinquent, as a presumptive 

* Answer, p. 39. 



136 

proof that what so excellent a person does, must 
be done conscientiously, and from good though 
mistaken motives. But we have nothing to do 
with such virtues. The House of Commons 
contains as many good fathers, good brothers, 
good sons, and good people, in all the private 
relations of life, as can well be assembled togCr 
ther amongst 65S individuals, and yet the whole 
misfortunes of the country, as Lord Grey said 
in 17935 ay^j and of Europe too, as your 
Lordship said, have undoubtedly emanated from 
that assembly, and, as far as their public works 
are concerned, it might as wejl have been cpm- 
posed of the devils of Pandsenionium. 

In judging of politicians, we have nothing to 
do but with their public works ; by these we 
are to know them ^ we are not to judge of the 
works by the men, but of the men by their 
works. How foolish it is of your Lordship, whe^ 
trying to excuse the Irish insurrection act, you 
say you do not mean to enter into the merits of 
the proposition, though if if came from the Duke 
of Bedford, then in Ireland, and the late Mr, 
Elliot, the presumption zvas strongly in its favor ^ 
from their tried and distinguished talents as 
statesmen, united with the utmost mildness and 
gentleness of disposition ; qualifications which could 
not deliver the last, though unhappily lost to his 
country, from an insinuation of reproach,^ 
* Answer, p. 66, 



137 

How very idle is all this ! The question was 
jfipt what sort of a man the Duke of Bedford is, 
nor what sort of a man Mr. Elliot was, but what 
sort of thing the Irish insurrection act was. The 
question w^s as to the merits of that proposition 
as you call it ; and if you did not chuse to enter 
into those merits, you should have been silent^ 
for we have not yet extended the law fiction 
which guards the king, to you and your friends. 
We do not admit, as an a priori defence of your 
follies, that a Whig can do no wrong. 

I must here remark that you have had recourse 
throughout the whole of your answer to this 
ridiculous fallacy, and that to an extent which 
cannot but move the pity of those who recollect 
what you once were, and the indignation of those 
who cannot understand how you can venture 
to lend the sanction of a respectable name to 
the unworthy delusions of hypocrisy. Pray 
review the manner in which you have touched 
upon one of the charges made against the Wl^igs 
by the Replyer; namely, the introduction of 
Lord {Lllenborough into the cabinet. Do you 
defend it, or do you not defend it ? I say it is 
impossible to make out any thing from your 
three pages and a half on this subject, except 
that you are resolved to shuffle over this qviestion, 
and to divert our attention from the merits of the 
question first of all, to the improbability of your 
consenting to do any thing wrong on this point; 



138 ^ 

you, " who of all others ought certainly to have 
*^ beeii most jealous of any departure from that 
** sacred principle of judicial independence which 
** is the greatest security to the public freedom ^^^ 
Why, my Lord, this is just what we say; but 
to assert that you ought to have been jealous, 
when we protest that you were not jealous, is 
really too ludicrous : at this rate we shall never 
be able to convict any delinquent of any charge. 
Such a mode of reasoning downwards is absurd 
in any case, but more so when the person whose 
implied consciousness of duty, (for it is nothing 
more) is to protect whatever emanates from him, 
is the very individual charged with the crime. 
You, secondly, turn from your own authority, 
that is, the authority of the person accused, to 
the authority of Lord Ellenborough, that is, the 
authority of the person benefitted by the tran- 
sition. — ^Strange logic from a lawyer. 

You say, — " But a distinction between the 
*' privy council and the cabinet, in any thing 
*' connected with the independence of judicial 
*^ functions, never even occurred to me, nor to 
" Lord Ellenborough himself, though a very 
" able and learned man, yet whose character 
" would have been still more involved in the 
" acceptance of an inconsistent situation, con- 
" ferring, besides, neither emolument nor dig- 
" nity, beyond those of his already exalted 
* Answer, p. 54. 



139 

"station, but only adding to its almost into- 
*^ lerable burthens, which have lately carried 
" him to the grave/'* 

To what does all this amount? merely to the 
same argument of authority : first, that Lord 
Ellenborough was a very able and learned man ; 
secondly, that he would have lost character by 
the act if wrong; and, thirdly, that he hurried 
himself prematurely to the grave, by thus add- 
ing to his public duties. The whole of which 
are mere assumptions, and, if admitted, would 
prove nothing ; for a very able and learned man 
may commit a very unconstitutional act; a 
man, sensible that he would lose character by 
that act, may still consent to that loss; and, 
lastly, I presume, that, as the untimely death 
of Lord Ellenborough was introduced by your 
Lordship, to give us a specimen of the pathetic 
^n pamphleteering, any serious remark on my 
part would be thrown away upon a mere trope. 
I believe Lord Ellenborough to have been a very 
wicked judge, but I will not make a jest of his 
decease, much as you tempt your readers to 
pleasantry, by the verdict you have just given, 
as to the manner in which he came by his death*. 

Before I have done with this part of the ques- 
tion, I cannot help observing upon the inno- 
cence with which your Lordship keeps out of 
sight the real cause of Lord Ellenborough*s ap- 
* Answer, p. 56. 



140 

pointment, which was no less disgraceful to th6 
Whigs than the appointment itself. It was 
merely that Lord Sidmouth might have his due 
share of influence and numher of votes in the 
cabinet. In order to prevent the preponderance 
pf those principles which the Foxites had so 
long professed, (as well as to carve out in equal 
portions the favours of the crown) it was de- 
manded, that a sufficient quantity of the old 
leaven of high-church and Tory principles should 
be infused into the government. By submitting 
to this addition to the numerical force of then 
old opponents in the coalition cabinet, the 
Whigs basely consented to give a gaurantee, ad 
it were, against themselves, and to bind their 
own hands from the commission of any of those 
popular acts which they had so often threatened 
in the course of their old opposition calling. The 
£^dmission of Lord Ellenborough and such men into 
the cabinet was, i repeat, a security demanded 
by the king and the Tories, against the prepon- 
derance of presumed Whig principles ; and, hy 
granting that security, doubly, as it were, and 
violating those principles by the admission, not 
only of another friend of the court, but that 
roan, chief justice of England 5 the Whigs showed 
even in the outset, that they had no objection 
to give the best possible security against the in-j 
terference of their old opposition professions with 
their present ministerial practice. Your Lordship 



ha.d better have contetited yourself with saying as 
y6u do> " / u)ish, for fny own part, that Judges 
could have been always kept at a distance from every 
thing connected with the court, or with ani) council 
qf the king,''^ This would have been a late re^ 
pentance and acquiescence in the general voice 
of your countrymen, (including liiany of your 
own party) which has decided, beyond the reach 
of sophistry, this act to be an indelible disgrace 
on the memory of Mr. Fox. Mr. Perceval was 
backed by the whole country when he exclaim* 
ed, " It is impossible to say v^hat part Mr* Fo3£ 
** M^ould have acted had this measure been re«* 
"sorted to by a ministry he opposed; but if he 
** was serious in his attachment to liberty ^ of 
** which, all over the world, he was an affection- 
^* ate toaster, it was natural to think he would 
** have opposed a thing so inconsistent with the 
" true principles of freedoni. 1 am S2itisfied that, 
** if ministers do not naw see the impropriety of 
*' the measure, they soon \Vill be convinced, by 
*/ the disapprobation of the country. I rather 
*^ think that tihey doUbt its propriety, but are to6 
*^ obstinate to confess their effor.'^f I was iii 
the House of Commons myself, and can appeal 
to all present, whether the new tetiants of the 
treasury-bench did not by their blushes show a 
sign of grace. They were too youiig in office 

♦ Answer, p. 57. 
t Parliamentary Debates, March 3, 1806. 



142 

to be hardened sinners, and the elaborate defence 
of " the most accomplished debater that the 
world ever saw" lost all impression, and was at 
once effaced by this simple appeal to the opi- 
nion of the country and to the conscience of the 
ministers. 

A more extraordinary instance even than those 
before quoted, has your Lordship given of your 
new way of arguing from persons to facts, in 
the excuse you make for the Whigs voting the 
payment of his debts to Mr. Pitt. Your reason 
is, first, because " it manifestly appeared at his 
death that he had been an incorrupt,'* though in 
your opinion, " a mistaken servant of the crown,** 
Now this merely amounts to Mr. Pitt not having 
made a fortune for himself; but, I say, that 
no man would think it worth his trouble to make 
a fortune, if he could be permitted to accumulate 
a debt of 40,000/.* Mr. Pitt had money^s worth 
all his life, and that he was not guilty of the 
sordid, troublesome folly of heaping up money 
itself, was no earthly reason for paying his debts. 
Leaving a debt of 40,000/., or 40,000/. in his 
coffers, was, as far as the nation was concerned, 
just the same thing, if the nation paid the debt, 
except that the former hazarded the commission 

• Mr. Fox said, that " to speak of Mr. Pitt as disinterested 
in not touching the pubhc money was an insult." — DehateSg, 
Feb. Sj 1806. Mr. Ponsonby said, he was astonished Mr. 
Pitt's debts were so little as 40,000/. ! ! 



143 

of an additional injustice; namely, the ruin of 
his creditors. As to your Lordship reducing all 
Mr. Pitt's faults, which you had ten thousand 
times all of you denounced as treason against 
public liberty, into his being merely a " mistaken 
servant of the crowuy' I say, that such candour 
does not deceive you, still less can you expect 
us to be cheated by so odious and idle a pretext 
for sacrificing a public principle. 

Your next reason is, that you would, had 
you opposed the motion, " been outnumbered by 
an immense majority in parliament ^ I believe 
you would; but what has this to do with the 
matter? If you were to have been deterred by 
immense majorities in parliament y you never would 
have opposed Mr. Pitt throughout the whole of 
his career. As parliaments are now constituted, 
there never can be enough of genuine public 
spirit to resist the idle clamour against severity 
and persecution beyond the grave; but, had the 
sense of the people been taken, ninety-nine- 
hundredths of the nation would have applauded 
the Foxites for not acquiescing in the payment 
of the debts of the minister.* A resistance 
which would have been equally well founded, 
with the opposition of Mr. Fox and Mr. Wind- 
ham to the erection of Mr. Pitt's monument. 
The fear of being unnumbered did not prevent 
Mr. Fox from opposing the monument; he had 

* Cobbett's Political Register, Feb. 1, 1806. 



144 

only 89 with him on that occasion: this, there- 
fore, was not the reason why the Whigs con- 
sented to pay Mr. Pitt's debts. 

The reason your Lordship gives is, that Mr. 
FoX *^ concurred zvith the adversaries of his opi-^ 
TtionSy though it might appear to give a colour against 
his own, rather than keep up, beyond the grave, 
political animosities and contentions, the very re^ 
membrance of which, in his own benevolent mind, 
had already been blotted out for ever"* No, my 
Lord, this will not do -, this was not the reason 
to be inferred from Mr. Fox's own words. 

Mr. Canning having said, " / beg genilemeii 
again to consider on ivhat ground they agree to the 
Oiotion, Those who do not vote for it, on the ground 
of Mr, Pitfs merits, had better oppose it openly,'* 
Mr. Fox answered, " He had only said, that he 
had distinctly stated the grounds of his own vote iii 
favour of it to be Mr, PzV^V MERITS. "f Your 
Lbrdship is determined not to recollect the his- 
foif-y of transactions in which you yourself were 
concerned. But your own additional reason for 
consenting to this measure, is a most extraordi- 
nary instance of the personal reverence I have 
so often alluded to : you wish it to be '' recol- 
lected, that Mr, Pitt was the son of the great Earl 
of Chatham, who had a right to expect to be still 
tiding in the feelings of this country :" exceedingly 

* Atis^ef, p. 59. t Debates, Feb. 3, 1806. 



145 

good ; but if a monument is to be raised to all 
of the descendants of that minister, as long as 
Lord Chatham is living in the feelings of this coun- 
try, where shall room be found for the cumbrous 
repeated tokens of such eternal gratitude. Your 
Lordship took care, in 1793, to remind Mr. Pitt 
how he differed from the great Earl of Chatham, 
and since, according to your own account, the 
debts of Mr. Pitt were paid, by the candour of Mr. 
Fox, and as a debt to Lord Chatham : the merits, 
then, of Mr. Pitt had nothing to do with the 
matter ; and the commander-in-chief of the 
Walcheren expedition will have a right to expect 
that his father shall be living in the feelings of 
this country, at his demise also, as well as at 
that of his younger brother. The nation did not 
here want any such memorial to prove, that the 
late Earl of Chatham was still living in the feel- 
ings of the country. The parliament, that set- 
tled 4,000/. a year upon his descendants, took 
care to prevent any premature oblivion upon the 
subject of his merits. Lord Chatham is still 
living in the red book. On the whole, this is 
an inimitable sample of Whig practice, and 
Whig pleading. The question is, whether a 
minister, whom the Whigs had for 20 years 
proclaimed an apostate and a traitor to the 
liberties of his country, should have his debts 
paid by the nation, as a national token of his 
merits? The Whig leader at the time positively 

L 



146 

says, " Yes, for his merits:' The Whig Chan- 
cellor, 13 years afterwards, says, *'Yes; 1st, 
because he fingered none of the public money, 
(a merit which it was an insult, according to the 
Whig leader, to impute to him)^ 2dly, because 
it would have been useless to oppose the ma- 
jority 5 3dly, because Mr. Fox was a man of 
snoh gentleness y ingenuousness y diXidi noble simplicity, 
that he forgave Mr. Pitt; and, 4thly, because 
whatever you may think and we all thought of 
Mr. Pitt, his father was still the great Earl of 
Chatham." Here we have names, and words, 
and virtues, arranged in close order, according 
to the usual Whig tactics, to keep out of view 
the untenable nakedness of the post which it is 
necessary to defend. To crown all, your Lord- 
ship has recourse to the reverse of the Wolf's 
argument : The son is but a lamb, but he had a 
ram for his father. 

In truth, my Lord, the nation have a right 
to demand consistency from their public men. 
The memory of a bad minister should be pur- 
sued with invectives, not suffered to sleep in 
oblivion 3 far less be crowned with reward. It 
is not just that some solitary merit should be 
selected as an excuse either for remuneration or 
for pardon. Public justice, public good, de- 
mand otherwise. What security can there be 
for the sincerity of our politicians if they are 
even required to show themselves actuated at 
different times by feelings so different on the 



147 

same subject, and if their opposition to a system 
is to appear only a dramatic part adopted in 
their character as opponents of the minister, 
and which must be dropped for the sake of de- 
cent condolence when he drops into the grave ? 
Your Lordship may call this persecution, may call 
this warring with the dead. It may be so : but it 
is, nevertheless, just, and proper, and useful. 

Those feelings, which in private life are in- 
compatible with an amiable character, are not 
to be checked; on the contrary, they are to 
be cherished when applied to the political con- 
duct of our contemporaries. It is the duty of 
every good statesman to cherish his antipathies 
for bad statesmen. To blot out for ever such 
animosities is not, as you would hint, a proof 
of a benevolent mind. It is a proof of a feeble 
mind, of a profligate mind ; it is a proof of a 
man either being deceived by the appearance of 
rectitude, or it is more likely by the wish to ob- 
tain a little momentary credit for a display of the 
milder qualities : or of his being deliberately re- 
solved to acquiesce in the pardon of vice rather 
than to establish a precedent which shall set the 
standard of virtue too high, and exclude all 
chance of indulgence for his own meditated 
apostacy. 1 have as great a veneration for part 
of Mr. Fox's character, as your Lordship has, 
but not for this part. 



148 

It is not required, that the debates in parlia- 
ment should '^ engender any malignant passions ^^^ 
which your Lordship seems to think they would, 
if men were obliged to adhere to their former 
professions; on the contrary, there is not the 
least necessity that a feeling on public affairs 
should interfere with the charities of private 
life; and I can easily understand, how Cromwell 
should be ready to fire a pistol in King Charles's 
face without feeling the least personal animosity 
against him. But the House of Commons should 
be a field for serious warfare, not for a sham- 
fight, or an Italian battle, only for unseating the 
combatants. Your Lordship seems delighted 
with every thing unsubstantial, and is pleased 
even with a popular clamour, provided it shall 
be about nothing, and have no foundation in 
reason, or knowledge, or consideration.* In 
the same way I must allow that, candour, and 
indulgence, and liberality, are inimitably suited 
to the farce which is got up and played by the 
rival polemics of St. Stephen's, and will be en- 
couraged and copied, and these opinions of mine 
hooted down and proscribed as long as that farce 
lasts. But when the curtain shall have fallen, 

* " Clamours of such descriptions may pass at the moment, 
" and, perhaps, have their uses in a free country, though set 
" on foot without due knowledge or consideration.^'-^iin- 
fwer, ^c. p» 54. 



149 

never again to be raised over those fooleries; 
then, indeed, words will have their true weight 
and invariable meaning, wherever spoken, and 
the speakers will be expected to abide by them ; 
then we shall hear no more of those theatrical 
passions which prompt our patriots to take a 
minister's head this day and his arm the next: the 
language of furious proscription, and of fulsome 
panegyric, will no longer be heard in an assem- 
bly met together not to indulge the momentary- 
humours of a few individuals, but to promote 
the permanent happiness of all. We shall have 
done with that sage privilege, by which the par- 
liamentary currency has been debased into no- 
thing but local tokens, mere paltry club counters, 
perpetually changing hands, and passed, with 
mock solemnity, from gambler to gambler, and 
back again, but which are payable no where out 
of the room, and not worth picking up in the 
street. When that day comes, we shall hear no 
more of the merits of a dead minister in the 
mouth of the man who has condemned every 
action of his life ; nor will men, like your Lord- 
ship, be called upon to defend the inconsis- 
tencies of an illustrious friend, and venture, 
when writing to a nation who have some little 
character for common sense, to pourtray the 
loathsome excrescences of habitual hypocrisy as 
" a beautiful feature of our public councils,'^ * 

♦ Answer, &c. page 49. 



150 

I pass, as you pass, my Lord, quite naturally, 
from the pardon granted by the Whigs to a dead 
enemy, to the friendship which they accorded to 
a living opponent. 

The Coalition of 1806 is allowed by the apo- 
logist for your party, to have formed ^' a motley 
administration,* which afforded a lesson of errors 
to be in future avoided.*' But if this candid 
avowal had not been made, the nation had de- 
cided that question, and your Lordship comes 
too late with any discovery respecting the junc- 
tion of Lord Grenville with Mr. Fox — or rather 
of Mr. Fox consenting to take place under Lord 
Grenville. Your whole excuse goes, indeed, as 
I have before hinted, to the necessity of keeping 
worse men out of place. You ask,f " could they 
(the Whigs) themselves have formed an adminis- 
tration?'* I do not know — but I do know that 
the formation of an administration ought not to 
be the first grand object of the representatives of 
the people in parliament : and that if those men 
who advocate popular principles, remained firm 
to those principles, without any of the usual 
motives of party, they would form an union, 
which, if mere place were their object, would, 
sooner or later, force any king of England to 
adopt their counsels, without any base condi- 
tions or wicked alliances. I do know that the 
country expected of them that they should never 

♦ State of Parties, Edinburgh Review for June, 1818. 
t Defence, page 23, 



151 

form part of aa administration, except for the 
purpose of carrying into effect the principles 
they had so long professed ; and I also know, 
that the general disappointment attending that 
administration attached solely to the Whigs.— 
No one thought worse of Lord Grenville for 
admitting Mr. Fox under him — no one thought 
worse of Lord Sidmouth for acting with Mr. Fox 
— and for this reason — it was clear that neither 
Lord Sidmouth nor Lord Grenville had made any 
sacrifice of principle — the administration was 
such as might have been expected from them. 
The sacrifice then was thought to be solely on 
the part of the Whigs — not only the people, but 
the Tories themselves, saw where the change 
had taken place; and a courtly poet, of great 
eminence, dropped a tear over the grave of the 
regenerated patriot, who had died, though he 
had not lived, a Briton* — in other words, who 
had repented of his former popular politics. As 
the Whigs allowed so great an infusion of Lord 
Sidmouth*s principles, and gave such a gua- 
rantee against the admission of their own, by 
giving Lord Ellenborough a seat in the Cabi- 
net -y so they offered, if possible, a more decisive 
surety to Lord Grenville, that he never should 
have reason to complain of any recurrence to 
their old, troublesome, opposition politics. — And 

♦ " Record ibat Fox a Briton died.'* -^ Walter Scot^^ 
Marmion. 



152 

this they did betimes — for I recollect that Mr. 
Fox was yet on the opposition bench when he 
moved for ** leave to bring in a bill for removing 
certain doubts^* * as to the compatibility of the 
offices of Auditor of the Exchequer and Com- 
missioner of the Treasury. But the omnipo- 
tence of parliament itself could not have reached 
to the removing of doubts^ had they existed ; and 
the nation found itself suddenly half agreeing 
with Mr. George Rose, when he said, that he 
should have consented to the bill if it had been to 
remove doubts, but that no " doubt could be en- 
tertained on the subJect.^^-\ It was not, perhaps, 
so much the impropriety of the thing itself 
which shocked the nation, as the sign which it 
afforded, that the Whigs despised all public 
opinion, and were, for the sake of a ministerial 
arrangement, quite careless how soon they gave 
a proof of their contempt. 

Lord Grenville did not lose any character by 
the transaction — it was conformable to his whole 
practice and preaching; and as to the people, 
he had not to settle accounts with them, but 
with the King and parliament. But the Whigs 
had preached against such practices, and had ap- 
pealed to the people against king and parliament 
anytime these twenty years. The measure by 

* Feb. 4, 1805— Parliamentary Debates. 
t Debates as above. 



153 

which Lord Grenville was to lose nothing by 
consenting to the arrangement that included the 
Whigs, has received a condemnation without 
appeal — your Lordship knows well enough that 
it has^ and that to call the unpopularity which 
attached to the Whigs for that measure, a " pre- 
judice y^* which it is disgraceful to renew, is to 
force us to take your word for more than it is 
worth. 

As to the Coalition itself, you are equally 
bold when you say, that the Replyer ought to 
have shown that the Whigs " could have carried 
measures of their own by a sole administration, 
which were frustrated by the union you con- 
demn. "f The weight of this proof did not lie at 
all upon the Replyer — it was enough for him to 
show that from the Coalition administration had 
emanated certain acts, totally at variance with 
the formerly professed principles of the Whigs. 
The Replyer did not, I believe, complain of the 
Whigs for that reconciliation with an antago- 
nist, which you think so beautiful a feature of 
our councils, but with reconciling themselves to 
measures which they had for a quarter of a cen- 
tury condemned. You cannot deny, that if 
Mr. Fox did not bring Whig principles into 
place, it was nothing to bring Whigs into place. 
You cannot get over, that Mr. Fox gave his 
pledge to the whole nation repeatedly, that a 

♦ Answer, page 54. f Ibid, page 49. 



154 

radical reform both in the Representation of the 
people in parliament^ and of the abuses that have 
crept into the practice of the Constitution of this 
country y together with a complete and fundamental 
change of system of administration, must take place; 
and that till it did, he^ for one, would take no 
share in any administration or he responsible in any 
office in his Majesty's councils,"^ Now, my Lord, 
I ask you publicly, did Mr. Fox, when he joined 
Lord Granville and Lord Sidmouth — men, whose 
fortunes and characters had grown solely out of 
and upon the very system which Mr. Fox swore 
he would change radically, or live out of place 
all his life — did he make one single stipulation, 
that he should be allowed to make a single 
change in the general system of administration ? 
Answer me, my Lord, or never talk again of 
the Whigs not having had time to develop their 
virtues. I ask you explicitly, did Mr. Fox in- 
sist upon a reform of any one of the abuses that 
have crept into the practice of the Constitution, as 
the condition of his coming into place? Was it 
understood amongst your party, that one word 
had passed on the subject previously to your 
acceptance of office ? Mr. Fox said in the de- 
bate, Jan. 4, 1798, that if he had advised Lord 
Moira, he should have said — ^' Take care, my 
** Lord, take care, that while you are forming 
" the ministry, you are not doing so without 

* Parliamentary Debates, Jan. 4, 1798. 



155 

^' solid grounds : unless you have a proper 
" pledge of a Reform, the good which you 
" intend will come to nothing." Did Mr. Fox 
have or ask for this proper pledge ? He said, 
on the same occasion, " My sincere wish was, 
" never to make any part of any administration, 
" and I NEVER WILL, unless I have a pledge for 
" a general reform of abuses.^' Had Mr. Fox 
this pledge ? As to Reform of Parliament — you 
tell us too clearly to be misunderstood, that it 
was not brought into consideration — and for what 
reason ? because, " there was no chance zohat- 
" ever that the House of Commons would have 
" yielded at present to any minister." Good hea- 
vens ! then the Whigs are worse than Pitt — be- 
sides, there being no chance whatever of carrying 
the measure, so far from preventing Mr. Grey 
and yourself from bringing it forward, actually 
stimulated you the more. You owned there was 
no chance, and made it an argument for agi- 
tating the question. Surely, your chance was 
increased by your becoming ministers : but I am 
ashamed to argue with you, when I know you 
are only laughing about this question, and leav- 
ing Reform of parliament apart : — I repeat the 
question, whether the Whigs made a single sti- 
pulation, that when they came in, they should 
be allowed to carry a single one of their popu- 
lar professions into practice — in short, whether 
Mr. Fox made a bargain for, or let drop a word 



156 



of his intended adherence to one single point of 
the conditions which he had sworn in the face of 
his countrymen should be observed ; and mark 
you, my Lord, not after he took office, but before 
he took office — he said the radical change " must 
take place, and until it did, he for one," &c. 

Am I wrong in saying, that the only question 
was as io persons y not io principles, and that the 
solicitude of your party was totally directed as 
to whom the King would, after your past con- 
duct, consent to admit to his embrace ? Am I 
wrong in saying, that you. Lord Erskine, felt 
as if dropped from the clouds, when you heard 
that the King had actually consented to your 
being his Chancellor? You tell the Replyer 
that he knows nothing of this matter 5 but al] 
the world will know enough of the matter, if 
you are not able to give a simple t/^^, or no, as to 
the real conditions of the coalition. Was there 
any salvo for principle or not? — The Replyer 
had a right to presume there was none, because, 
not a single step was taken towards this RADICAL 
change of system. If you know there was, you 
owe it to your party to speak out — you owe it to 
the people to speak out; for you cannot think 
we are to be contented with such mere straw- 
tickling as that '^ we forget, the short continu- 
" ance of your power;'' — we forget *' that it 
" was reduced to nothing by the fatal illness of 
" Mr. F0X3*' — we forget that *Mt could not have 



157 

" been fit, during that unhappy period, unless 
" under the most pressitig necessities, to alter what 
" we found established, and to have resorted to 
" \mmed\si.te untried substitutions, merely for the 
^' support of our objections."* 

But Lord Grenville was not ill — he was prime 
minister, and if, as you pretend, all subjects of 
difference had ceased between you, he might 
have carried the measures. Respecting the 
pressing necessities, your Lordship must know, 
that the whole question always is, and has 
been, when these necessities are really arrived -, 
that the trite, but trusted fallacy of ministers, 
is always to say that they are not come. You 
must know, that for twenty years your Whigs 
had been exclaiming that the pressing necessi- 
ties zvere come ; and you know that, according 
to Mr. Fox's pledge, you should have come in 
to alter zvhat you found established, and for no- 
thing else. If you did not come in for this 
purpose, I say you were guilty of a base de- 
sertion of your former professions, and of your 
public duty 3 and if you did not come in with 
this understanding, that you were to effect this 
alter atio7i, this radical change, you are grossly 
insulting us, by telling us that you might have 
done good, but only waited for a pressing ne- 
cessity, and for the recovery of Mr. Fox's health. 

♦ Answer, page 60. 



158 

Such an excuse supposes that Lord Grenville 
was not united in principle, and would naturally 
relapse into his old measures, if not controled 
by Mr. Fo3^. Such an excuse does away with 
the necessity of apologizing for any one thing 
you did or omitted to do ; and is, as you say, 
an answer (an answer ! I I) " which manifestly 
applies to several other charges.*'* Indeed it 
does— it applies to one as well as another : It 
applies to all — or it applies to none. 

You needed not to have taken the trouble to 
defend a single measure of the coalition. You 
feel this, indeed, and it appears to me, give up 
almost all the points attacked. 

For example. The settlement of foreign 
troops in England was " against your opinions.** 
But you found them introduced by your prede- 
cessors; " could you forbear to legalize them ?** 
could you forbear to increase them, or in your 
fine round-about phrase, *^ to apportion their 
*' numbers to the exigencies of our defence, at 
" so critical a period of the war?** — so you raised 
the foreigners to 16,000 troops. 

The Barrack system ! ! " you objected to it 
" when first proposed in parliament ;** but the 
measure was carried, and the barracks w^ere 
built, before you came into office. So you con- 
tinued, and would have continued the barracks, 
in the face of Mr. Fox*s general definition of his 

* Answer, page 60. 



159 

radical change, in spite of his solemn promise^ 
if ever he came into place " to govern the country 
by a system of liberty, instead of by a system of re- 
straint.*^^ 

The Income tax. ** It is true that you op- 
posed it even as a war tax." But you found it 
established, so " you continued for a season that 
*' unpopular tax: and being continued^ it became 
" necessary, either to square it with the exigen- 
" cies of the state, or instantly to impose other 
*^ taxes, which it required the utmost consider- 
** ation to mature. This was our situation," 
say you, " and we expect credit from our charac- 
" ters, that we should not have continued it in 
" peace, or even in war, against objections so 
" justly raised up against it." 

This is so like giving up the point, that you 
ought to be spared. But the Whig ministers 
made none of these allowances at the time: they 
said 10 per cent, w^as the natural limit of the 
proportion to be taken from every individual in- 
come. A Whig naturally leads the people. A 
Whig naturally takes a tenth from every man's 
income ; and to oppose him either in the one or 
the other pretension is unnatural. You expect 
credit for your characters. My good Lord, this will 
not do : you had credit for your characters for a 
long, long time ; and the continuance of every 
obnoxious measure, which you had firmly de- 

* Debates, Jan. 4, 1798.— Mr. Fox's speech. 



160 

nounced, is a strange cause for demanding tlie 
confidence of the country for your future discon- 
tinuance of those measures. Besides, the income 
tax had found its natural limit, and the reason 
of prior establishment would become stronger 
every day. Yet you ask us to believe, that 
" you would not have continued it even in 
war^" but you did continue it. The conclud- 
ing phrases are unintelligible, ^^ against objections 
so justly raised against it.*' I do not make out 
whether or not you mean to allow, that objec- 
tions were justly raised against it at the time; 
if they were, how barefaced was it to continue 
the tax ; if at any other time, when would that 
time arrive during war ? Never, according to 
your own account. And yet the tax would have 
been dropped during war: and, for this, we 
are to take your word, upon the credit of Whig 
character ! ! ! Yes, of these gallant financiers, 
whose great terror was, lest the national debt 
should be paid with a precipitancy detrimental 
to our commercial interests. 

The Bank restriction you defend, as you de- 
fend the Income tax. It was done : and could 
not be undone. At least, not in a hurry. Al- 
though it was " a dangerous departure from the 
principles of public credits 

Who would think that all these measures, 
which were to be controled, were emanations 
from and a part of that very system which Mr. 



161 

Fox pledged himself radically to subvert ? Who 
would not rather believe them the laws of the 
Medes and Persians, or the immutable positions 
of the Koran, or those ancient institutions which 
the Iron Barons of England proclaimed they 
would not suffer to be changed ? 

If the Whigs changed nothing of the system 
of administration, either at the root or in the 
branch, but continued and encouraged the plan 
o^ governing by parliamentary corruption, it would 
be almost idle to inquire whether they seriously 
contemplated the least change in the system of 
Representation. You yourself give up the de- 
claration of the Friends of the People, of that 
very society whose petition you seconded in 
parliament. — You give up the uniformity of 
suffrage. — You give up the new division of the 
country. You give up the near approach to 
universal suffrage: to the advocatingof all which 
you have the candour (indeed, you could not 
possibly deny it) to own, you were a party ; and 
this you do " at the risk of your character, 
** which now it seems (so you say) must attend 
" the smallest change of opinion."* 

What do you call the smallest change of opi- 
nion ? it is the whole change, that is all. You 
have given up the Radical Reform, to adopt 
what? A reform derived from well considered 
additions " of county representations, and of 

♦ Answer, p. 30. 



162 

'' populous towns, though never before repre- 
" sented.** That is to say, you are for preserv- 
ing the rotten-borough system in undiminished 
lustre : for, my Lord, in spite of your indigna- 
tion, I say, that this would continue the infamous 
corruptions of rotten boroughs.* This is quite 
natural: we understand you, when you say, 
that yau are like Mr. Burke, and are attached 
to such divisions of our country as have been 
formed by habit, and call it a wise saying 
applicable less to France than to England, 
" where we have so many proud recollections of 
freedom,** -)[ You have a right, of course, to 
change your opinion in toto ; but, when you 
call that entire change, the smallest change; 
and when you defend that change by confound- 
ing the most disgraceful traffic that ever existed 
in any country, " with the proud recollections 
" of freedom," you must consent to be laughed 
at even by the Rabble. 

The reason given for abandoning yoar former 
demand for a very extended suffrage, shows a 
most lamentable want of information in mat- 
ters in which you were once a principal actor. 
You wnll not come so near Universd Suffrage 
as you did formerly, " whilst its supp arters lie 
" so close behind me, to batter down my propo- 
" sition by the larger claim of an unqualified 
*^ right. Those adversaries had then m) formida^^ 

* Answer, p. 27, f Ibicl, p. 31i 



163 

*^ hie force.** * Both these propositions are false 
facts. The advocates of Universal Suffrage, the 
great majority of whom, certainly in Westmin- 
ster, argue from utility , not right, w^ill not bat^ 
ter down any proposition of your's for Reform. 
The excuse is all an assumption, and an absurd 
assumption ; for, at this rate, no man should 
give a beggar a shilling in charity, for fear of 
having his purse snatched out of his hand, by 
a by-stander, and flung amongst the crowd. 
You yourself, as explained and defended by 
Mr. Fox, on the debate on Reform, in 1797, 
overthrew this puny objection. " My learned 
" friend," said Mr. Fox, ** declared, if it be 
** true, as it is so industriously circulated, that 
** such and such men (dangerous men) do exist 
** in the country, then surely, in wisdom, you 
" ought to prevent their number increasing, by 
** timely conciliation of the body of moderate 
" men, who desire only Reform.*' Lord Grey, 
in moving for Reform, in 1793, said, " He well 
" knew that the chief difficulty to be encoun- 
*^ tered would be the argument as to the danger 
" of the times. This, indeed, is a never-failing 
" argument in times of prosperity and adversity, 
" in times of war and of peace. He had no 
" doubt it would continue to be made success- 
" fully, till THE People resolve for them- 
" SELVES there shall be a proper time." 
* Answer, p.^1, 
M 2 



1^4 

As to the advocates for Universal Suffrage 
having no formidable force when you and the 
AVhigs were the reforming Friends of the People, 
1 do not know what you call formidable; but I 
have Lord Grenville*s* authority for saying, that 
of the Reformers, the advocates of Universal 
Suffrage, were then *' infinitely the more numer- 
ous:" and yet, at that very time. Lord Holland 
said he should have voted for Mr. Grey's plan, 
which would have given about 1,500 electors to 
each representative, and would have entirely 
subverted the present Borough system — and de- 
clared he " wanted a system of administration 
founded upon Parliamentary Reform.*^ '\ 

You actually forget, that in your first pam* 
phlet, you had represented the bolder Reformers 
as so criminally and dangerously licentious, that 
they forced the government to interfere. You 
actually forget, that in this very answer you say, 
that there were tumultuous meetings, and an alarm^ 
ing mass of publications. You forget, that in this 
very Answer you confess, that very great multi- 
tudes were of opinion that even Universal Suffrage 
and Annual Parliaments were absolute rights of the 

* " The partisans of which said Universal Suffrage were 
" infinitely more numerous than those of moderate Reform." — 
Lord Grenville, Lords' Debates, Jan. 9,1798. Mr. Fox, in 
his speech on Jan. 4, 179S, owned that " Universal Suffrage 
was by many supposed the best Radical Reform." 

t See Lord Holland's speech, Jan. 9, 1798; and yet tlie 
Whigs now say Fox's Radical Reform was not a Parliamentari/ 
Reform. — Bah ! i \ — Laugh at them. 



m 

People, Now you say, they had no formidable 
force. But the fact is, that the danger is a 
mere feeble and ridiculous excuse, which you 
yourself laughed at foruierly ; and which is 
sometimes said to exist, sometimes said not to 
exist, just as it may suit the Whig weathercock 
of the day. 

You appear to me to have lost memory of 
dates as well as facts, when you say, that the 
tumultiious meetings, and the alarming mass of 
publications that led to the State Trials^ have now 
made the question of Reform AN ALMOST ^?2/2r(?Zj/ 
new one since Lord Grey delivered his opinion 
on Reform in 1794. What 1 has he delivered no 
opinion about Reform since 3 794? Why, the 
famous Declaration of the Friends of the People 
was in 1795. Mr. Grey's motion for Reform in 
Parliament, so often referred to, was in 1797. — 
Yes, that very motion, which would have remo- 
delled the whole state of representatiou. Mr. Fox 
gave his celebrated opinion about the right of 
resistance in 1795, and his pledge for a radical 
reform in 1798. Have you no books? You say 
that you do not hope the same success from 
meetings of the people to forward Reform at 
present, as when they were recommended by 
Lord Grey and Mr. Pitt — and this change of 
opinion you attribute to the " continued and 
" increasing prevalenceof impracticable theories, 
" and an excited spirit of irritation and discon- 
" tent.*' But I have before shown, that these 



166 

impracticable theories were allowed by your own 
Whigs to have been adopted by the majority of 
the Reformers, when the Whigs supported a very 
radical reform ; and your own Whigs now say 
that the majority of the Reformers are against 
Universal Suffrage.* I have before shown how, 
in your own former opinion, the way to allay 
discontents, was to forward Reform, not to drop 
the question altogether ; not to declare, that, on 
account of an inflamed and ungovernable spirit 
in the people, " any alteration in the forms of 
*^ parliament must be, ybr^Aa^^^a5<?w, dropped. "f 

Indeed, my Lord Grey sees no great harm in 
public meetings, independent of the agitation of 
the cause of Reform ; for he recommends keeping 
up and stirring up the spirit of the people as the 
best preservative of liberty ; and this he has said 
since the State Trials in 1794 — he said it in last 
January. J 

I discover, however, that it is not the pre- 
valence of the opinions in favour of Universal 
Suffrage, nor of any of those wild and visionary 
notions which the Whig Friends of the People 
professed, that will make your Lordship defer, 
for a season, any change in the representation. 
You once thought, you say, that although An- 

* See Lord Grey's Newcastle Speech. See State of Parties. 
His Lordship and the Reviewer find the mass of the people 
sound — that is, Whigs. 

t Defence, p. 30. 

% See the Newcastle Speech.— iVayca5//e Chronicle for Jan. 
9, 1819. 



167 

nual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage were 
claimed by very great multitudes, " yet, the 
subject in il,€ end would be considered with tern- 
perance and moderation.'"'^ Why did you think 
this in 1794, at the very time of the '' tumultu- 
ous meetings" of the '^ criminally licentious** 
societies, <Vc., whose existence you admit? — 
Why did you think so then, and do not think so 
now? You give your reason thus — " But is this 
" likely, Sir, at present, when almost every man 
" of rank, of station, or property, who ever aus- 
" piciated the cause of Reform, has been pro- 
" scribed and vilified'* — that is, when interpreted 
and reduced to fact — when the Whigs have been 
told by the people that they have abandoned 
their former opinions on Reform. In other 
words — when the people presume to advocate 
the cause by themselves, without waiting until 
they and their cause shall be again auspiciated 
by the Whigs. 

In the first place, admitting your position to 
be as true as it is exaggerated, think what a 
portrait you give of your patriots, when you des- 
cribe them as deserting a great public cause, be- 
cause they have been unjustly abused. Surely 
they had nothing to do, when they were accused 

* 1 must add the Because in a note, — it is not worth large 
print : — " Because the various classes of such a people as that 
" of England, might have brought opinions and conduct to 
'* such a happy medium upon this important subject, as to 
" have acted upon the prudence of parliament at no very 
" distant period, with a tolerable effect." — Answer, p. 24. 



168 

of having deserted Reform -, they had nothing to 
do, but to show, by being more eager than ever 
in forwarding that object, how falsely they had 
been calumniated. This would have been an 
answer, indeed, rather more noble, more states- 
man-like, more dignified, and more effectual, 
than the retort by loud complaint and invective, 
which has been the principal answer these 
persons of rank, station, and property, have 
deigned to give to the Radical Reformers.* 
That they have not voted for Reform, I shall 
not deny; but I likewise affirm, that few of them 
have ever spoken on the subject, without con- 
triving to denounce the Radical Reformers. But 
I need say little on this fact, as your Lordship 
seems to admit it, and to justify it. 

It is requisite, however, to deny solemnly the 
truth of your position, as to the proscription and 
vilification of almost every man of rank^ station, 

♦ It is one of the present Whig fallacies, to make a dis- 
tinction between the Radical Reformers now, and the Whig 
Radical Reformers, under the pretext, that the present Radi- 
cal Reformers are all for Annual Parliaments and Universal 
Suffrage. But this is false; and Mr. J. W. Ward, in his 
Speech on May 20, in 1817, on Reform, very well observed, 
that the moderate Reformers were those tvho would be content 
with partial alterations, applicable to what they deem particular 
grievances. All other Reformers are Radical Reformers; and, 
as the Whigs from 1790 to 1798, cannot possibly be included 
in Mr. Ward's definition, they certainly were then, as we are 
now. Radical Reformers. That is to say, they wished entirely 
to re-model the Representation, and they proclaimed the pa- 
I5AM0UNT IMPORTANCE of Reform. 



169 

or property i whoever auspiciated the cause of Re- 
form, Recollect, my Lord, you are talking of this 
having been done some time ago — .you are not 
alluding to any of the transactions of last year : 
for you give this as a reason why the Whigs had 
not latterly been so active as formerly in the 
cause of Reform ; so that the events of the late 
Westminster Elections did not come under con- 
templation ;* although, if they did, they would 
not bear you out. And yet, in another place, 
you say the Reformers have started up from a 
twelve years' trance.\ Have they been pro- 
scribing and vilifying in their sleep ? — Or do you 
allude to what they said and did before that 
trance, namely, in the Election of 1807? You 
say that the Reformers had ranged themselves 
under the Whigs until lately. What do you 
mean by lately ?% — twelve years ago ? My Lord, 
I suspect that you have admitted all that you 
have found in Whig speeches as incontrovertible 
facts; and that when you have read that the 
Whig invectives against the Reformers were in 
reply^ you have believed that the original attack 
had been made by the Reformers. The spleen of 
the Whigs was first moved, I believe, by Sir Fran- 

* The Report of the Westminster committee accused the 
Whigs of abandoning Reform. Lord Erskine shows why they 
had abandoned it — because they had been proscribed and 
vilified : so that the proscription and vilification must have 
been before the Report ; indeed before the Election in 1818. 

t Answer, p. 51. t Ibid, p. 15* 



170 

cis Burdett calling Mr. Fox " the best of pa- 
triots ;"*and since that period, sundry Palace-yard 
and Crown and Anchor speeches have cried up the 
PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE of Reform, and the AB- 
SOLUTE UNIMPORTANCE of who was in or who 
was 02^^ of place, unless as connected with the suc- 
cess of Reform. For, my Lord, you are as wrong 
as ever; there has been been no twelve years' 
trance — and I should not have quoted the 
phrase, except to show, you did not know what 
you were writing about. You will find no pro- 
scription, no vilification at any time; but you 
will find that the Reformers have been asleep 
at no time. There has been no twelve years* 
trance — it has been your Lordship rather, who, 
having had your head in a bucket for ^sq 
minutes, have passed through all sorts of adven- 
tures, and have dreamt over the occurrences of 
many imaginary years. 

Sir Francis Burdett, in his farewell address to 
the Freeholders of Middlesex, on the 28th of 
April, 1806, gave, by the picture he drew of 
the parties in the House of Commons, a tone to 
the language of the Reformers, which has never 
since been dropt. — His address of thanks to the 
Electors of Westminster was re-echoed by all 
those who had been disappointed h^ the coali- 
tion cabinet — that is, the great majority of the 

♦ Yet, since that description, Mr. Sheridan said on the 
hustings, in Covent-garden, that, had Mr. Fox been alive, he 
would have voted for Sir Francis Burdett. 



171 

whole people of England. The nation began to 
be indifferent to names — they joined the repre- 
sentative of Westminster in asking themselves 
the question — *' As long as the thieves in common 
" take all they can seize, what is it to the plundered 
" people who share the booty y how they share it, and 
** 272 what combination P*'* 

At the first anniversary dinner in 1808,f al- 
though Mr. By ng and several other Whig members 
of parliament were in the room, the language of 
the day was such as to show that the Reformers 
had taken a decided line, from which no reve- 
rence for favourite names would induce them to 
depart. At the great Parliamentary Dinner 
Meeting on the 1st of May, 1809> the language 
held by the Radical Reformers was still more 
explicit, and a speech from Mr. William Smith, 
enabled them to come to an explanation with 
the Whigs. Mr. Smith, with a frankness which 
did him honor, and which has always distin- 
guished his eminently useful career — told the 
meeting, that he could hold out little hopes to 
them of success; and drew his conclusion, in 
great part, from the failure of all the attempts 

* Sir Francis Burdett's Address to the Electors, May 25, 
1807. See these documents in the " Exposition of the Cir- 
cumstances which gave rise to the Election of Sir Francis 
Burdett, Bart, for Westminster, in May, 1807." Published 
by Tipper, Leadenhall-street. 

t See Proceedings of the First Anniversary Meeting of the 
Triumph of Westminster, Published by J. Morton, Strand. 



1725 

made by the '^ Friends of the People." To this 
Mr. Waithmaii replied : — " He has told us a 
'' great deal about the society of the Friends of 
" the People — that there were very able and ho- 
^' nourable men in that society, I most readily 
** allow ; but I should be glad to know, whether 
" those times were more propitious than these in 
" which we now live, for agitating the question of 
*^ Parliamentary Reform ? And if not, I should 
*^ be glad also to know, where all his great and 
" noble friends now are, who were members of 
" that society ? I remember Mr. Charles Grey 
" and Mr. Tierney standing up champions for a 
" Reform in Parliament; but I have recently 
*^ observed allusions by the same Mr. Charles 
** Grey, now Lord Grey, in which he seems to 
" sneer at gentlemen who take a leading part 
** in the question of Reform, and in which 
" he alludes to the crude notions of modern 
" Reformers." 

In another part of his speech he said, after 
mentioning Mr, Fox's assertion, that he would 
not come in without a Reform in Parliament- — 
" I greatly lament to say, that however strongly 
*' I was individually attached to the members of 
*^ that (Whig) administration, I saw not one of 
*^ those great professions carried into execution ; 
" nor did any one man in either house stand up 
*/ to give a pledge to carry such measures as had 
" been proposed before they came into adminSs-, 



173 

" tration, into execution." In another place, 
Mr. Waithman said : " Whatever may be said 
*^ by Lord Grey, of the House of Commons, I 
"am still of opinion, that there is no difference 
*' as to who are in or who are out under the 
" present system.'' 

The same gentleman then said, that since they 
had been in, the Whigs had deserted even the 
Whig Club. 

I can refer your Lordship to the proceedings 
of the great meeting in Palace-yard in 1810, 
Feb. 9. The language of Mr. Sturch on that 
occasion, shows the Reformers were not asleep- 
shows they knew the Whigs well — and speaks ia 
exactly the same tone as to the excellent indi- 
vidual character of members of the House, as 
you think so absurd and new in the Replyer. 
Mr. Sturch said — " Since the year 1780, we had 
" had political changes, and various ministries. 
" We had had Tory ministries, and we had had 
" Whig ministries. But had these changes pro- 
" duced any substantial alterations for the better? 
" Had there been any radical change of system ? 

" It was very far from his intention 

" to deny that there were individuals of great in- 
" tegrity in that House; but if they would have 
" an honest House, they must have free and 
" frequent elections.*'* This exception in favor 

* See an Account of these Proceedingg published and 
printed by M'Creery, 1810. 



174 

of individuals offended you in Sir Fraticis Burdett, 
and in the Replyer; but Mr. Sturch repeated it 
in the subsequent part of his speech 5 and your 
Lordship may see that the language of the Radi- 
cal Reformers has been invariably the same^ and 
that, even v^rhilst talking in their sleep of twelve 
years, they have been consistent in all that they 
have said. They have denounced Whigs as 
party men, because, when the party came in, 
nothing was done. They have respected Whigs 
as Reformers, and, in proportion as they ap- 
peared to stand by their original professions. 
Thus the Westminster Reformers openly con- 
demned the Outs as a body, for what they called 
rallying round the Constitution, against Sir 
Francis Burdett -, but they voted thanks to such 
members of parliament as had stood by their 
representative. 

After the liberation of Sir Francis Burdett, he 
addressed the electors at the Crown and Anchor, 
in a speech that so fully conveyed their senti- 
ments, that they ordered it to be printed and 
circulated.* Sir Francis, commenting on Lord 
Grey's speech, observed, " We are told in this 
*^ same speech of Lord Grey, that it is the fa- 
" shion of the times to vilify and defame all 
" public men. I should like one of these vili- 
*^ fied and defamed characters to come forward, 

* Published by Barker, Great Russell-street, Covent-gar- 
deo, 1810. 



175 

** and point out, in what he has been calum- 
" niated." The same speech, circulated by the 
electors, begged the country to observe, that it 
was the Whigs who went the great lengths in 
defence of the privileges of parliament, and thus 
did the dirty work of the ministers. In those 
days, Mr. Wishart, Mr. Waithman, Mr. Clay- 
ton Jennings, and Mr. Sturch, were amongst 
the leading Reformers at the public meetings ; 
they never made any exception to these opinions, 
and I am the better pleased with shewing from 
the gentlemen whose speeches I have quoted, 
that the language of the Reformers, and the 
complaints against them, have been always the 
same during this imagined twelve years' trance; 
because, both Mr. Waithman and Mr. Sturch 
may now be admitted as conclusive authority, 
having lately become respectable in the eyes of 
the Chronicler.* When then you say, that the 
radical Reformers had ranged under the Whigs 
" until lately y'-\ and that this is what " rubs us," 
you forget, or never knew, all that happened 

• " The Chronicle" calls him that respectable citizen, Mr. 
Sturch. We, radical Reformers, will not, as Bonaparte said, 
wash our dirty linen in public ; so we will not regret the past, 
but hope for the future. Mr. Sturch's name is to be found in 
all radical proceedings, since 1790, up to 1818. Surely he 
will not impair an honest reputation by suffering himself to 
be "patted upon the back" by poor Perry. 

t Answer, p. 15. '* Aye, there's the rub," In p. 13 
the word is, *♦ until very lateli/" 



176 

since 1807. You forget even that you had said 
in your " Defence^'* that the bolder Reformers 
would not range themselves under the Whig 
Friends of the People, in 1793, and so got into 
scrapes by their own headstrong nature, by be- 
ing without leaders, and by then " suspecting the 
Whigs.''* The radical Reformers are 7iot, I re- 
peat, guilty of any sudden abandonment of their 
officers. If there has been desertion, the de- 
sertion is not to be charged against the People. 
The Reformers in Westminster have always 
been awake — sometimes they have been obliged 
to reproach the Opposition, at others they have 
been able to approach nearer to certain mem- 
bers of that party. This they have done from no 
humour of the moment, nor from any wish to 
lead or be led ; but merely as there appeared an 
inclination amongst these gentlemen to become 
again earnest in the cause of Reform. But 
as to personally proscribing and vilifying, they 
have done no such thing. If there has been 
any proscribing and vihfying, it has been 
entirely on the side of the Whigs. For one 
instance which you will point out to me of the 
Radical Reformers calling the Whigs a faction, 
I will show you two of the Whigs abusing the 
Reformers, in good set phrases, in the true par- 
liamentary slang. Besides, when you talk of 
all these persons of rank, &c. you must mean 

* Defence of the Whigs, p. 10. 



177 

individually, not merely as included in their 
party. Now, let me ask, whom had the West- 
minster Reformers personally attacked before the 
last elections, (I say before the last elections, 
because your argument applies solely to that 
prior period) Lord Grey seems to be the person 
who has most frequently complained, so, I pre- 
sume, he must have been most frequently 
attacked. 

His Lordship is a very distinguished man, but 
mean as we are, we may say to him, as he said 
to Mr. Pitt — " we will never condescend to bar- 
" gain with him, nor endeavour to conciliate his 
" favor by any mode of compliment."* 

What has been said at any time against Lord 
Grey, respecting his change of opinion on Re- 
form, may certainly, as far as the language is 
concerned, be defended, by referring to himself: 
for I say, that he has never been called at any 
time by an epithet stronger or harsher than that 
which he applied to Mr. William Pitt in 1794 — 
An Apostate, We will let alone the other names, 
^^ prosecutor, aye, and persecutor too.'* I am not 
aware that this word had been ever distinctly 
applied to his Lordship at the time that he was 
thundering against the Reformers in the Lords, 
in the year 1810. But I conceive, that it would 
not be at all difficult to show, that Lord Grey 

♦ Debate, May 6, 1793, on Reform. 



17B 

does sta?id apart from his former opinions on 
Reform; and may, therefore, fairly be said to 
have apostatized. How far he stands apart is 
another question. I am under gi-eat difficulty in 
arguing with your Lordship, for I do not know 
what you will admit as evidence. The Replyer 
quotes to you an opinion of Lord Grey*s, and 
you say — Oh, it is only ** a sentence picked out 
from some report of a speech at a tavern,''* But 
a report of a tavern speech is quite ground 
enough to make you rise up in arms against the 
'* disappointed'' Mr. Hobhouse. 

However Lord Grey did, according to your 
own confession, in the House of Lords, own 
that he would not go the lengths he formerly 
went for Reform, for I find you using these 
words — '^ I am decidedly adverse to those re» 
** forms which occasion so much alarm to go- 
" vernment; so much so, that I should not be 
" disposed at this moment to advance so far in 
*^ any system of change, as that to which I for- 
^ J^ merly set my hand. I feel exactly in that 
^* respect y as I understand was expressed by a nobk 
^^ friend i now absent, whose motion I seconded in 
^^ the House of Commo7isJ"'\ 

That is to say, that neither Lord Grey nor 
you would advance so far for Reform as you did 
in 1793. But, without this admission from your 

* Answer, p. 20. 
t Debates, March 35, 1817. 



179 

Lordship, I can easily prove that Lord Grey's 
opinions on Reform have undergone a most ma- 
terial change. I refer, without multiplying in- 
dividual quotations, to all Lord Grey's speeches 
in 1793 and 1794, and 1797, whether his Lord- 
ship did not then maintain the PARAMOUNT IM- 
PORTANCE of Radical Reform. The recom- 
mendation to the people to meet in bodies, and 
act upon the prudence, that is, the fear of the 
House, is quite enough to prove that Lord Grey 
did then think tliat nothing was to be done 
without radical Reform* That his Lordship has 
dropped this notion of PARAMOUNT necessity, I 
think is tolerably clear, from his conduct and 
speeches in parliament. But I must quote a 
tavern speech, the report of whiclx was very 
carefully taken, and very egregiously laiKled in 
the Chr'onicle — I mean that spoken at Newcastle, 
at the Fox dinner in last January. 

^^ I am attached (sai4 Lord Grey) to a Reform 
" conducted upon moderate principles; always 
" gradual, and guided by salutary precautions. 
" But to those other principles of Reform, as 
** erroneous in theory as they are irreducible to 
" practice, I am a decided enemy, as I believe 
" them to be absurd, visionary, and senseless. 
" I should say, it appears to me, that there 
" cannot be a more false, a more mistaken, a 
** more mischievous belief, than that a reform ia 
** parliament, however desirable it may be, is the 
N 21 



180 

" one and only measure by which the salvation 
'' of the country can be effected."* 

The second paragraph here quoted may serve 
pretty well to show what Lord Grey now thinks 
of the paramount importance of Reform. But, 
perhaps, a stronger inference may be drawn from 
the first.— His Reform upon moderate principles, 
always gradual, and guided by salutary pre- 
cautions, cannot, by any sophistry, be the Re- 
form of the Friends of the People; a society 
with which his Lordship identified himself, not 
only at the time, but even so late as the year 
1810. On the 13th of June, in that year he refer- 
red to the proceedings of that society for his past, 
and, indeed, his then opinion ; for, strange as it 
may sound. Lord Grey, even then^ even in 1810, 
still seemed to wish to be called a Radical Re- 
former. 

Now the Friends of the People positively dis- 
claimed gradual Reform in so many words — both 
in 1794 and 1795— They said, ^^ gradual altera- 
" tions or partial improvements, though just and pru- 
" dent in the retrenchment of expenses, and in the 
** reduction of establishments, are, in their nature, 
^' unequal to the removal of a rooted, inveterate abuse, 
*/ To prune the vicious plant, is to strengthen anU 

* " By another association we were accused, as I am ac- 
" cused in the present day, of pot being a sincere friend to 
" Radical Reform."— Lords' Debates, June, 1810. 

Does not this hint both accusations to be equally unjust ? 



181 

" preserve it,'** Again in 1 795-'Gradual altera- 
ttons or progressive improvements which some meii 
recommend^ would all he successively absorbed^ and 
sink into the standing system, " Partial remedies 
'* serve only to soften the symptoms and to induce a 
" habit of acquiescence, zvhile they leave the root of 
^' the evil entii^e. If an effectual reform of the 
^^ House of Commons is not to be had now, let us 
" take care not to make it unattainable hereafter y 
*' by any act of agreement, or composition with the 
** mischief itself, or with the interests that support 
« itr 

That these were Lord Grey's sentiments, and 
those of the Whig party, need not be re-asserted. 
Sir Philip Francis must have thought them so, 
when he republished these declarations in 1817.t 
Indeed, your Lordship not knowing that you 
would have to shift your ground in your Answer, 
does in your Defence pronounce the declaration 
of the Friends of the People to be above all objec- 
tion — ^you call it ^^ practicable*' — you say it does 
not pass the sober medium; and yet this is any 
thing hxiidi, gradual ^dovtn. But, perhaps your 
Lordship might like to see what Lord Grey for- 
merly thought about those absurd, senseless, and 
visionary plans, so erroneous in theory, so irre- 
ducible to practice. These plans are, of course. 
Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage. 

* See his pamphlet — A Flan of a Reform in the Election, 
^c— Ridgway, 1817, 
t Defence, p. 9. 



182 

Lord Grey, then, in his place in the House of 
Commons, said, he did not approve the Duke of 
Richmond's plan of Reform^ though he thought IT 
BETTER THAN THE PRESENT SYSTEM.* " Any 
" plan would be better which would secure such 
** people in the House, as would vote indepen- 
*^ dently, and uninfluenced by corruption ;— he 
'^ could certainly mention a plan which ap- 
" peared to him better," &c. I need not add, 
that this is as much as to say, he thought 
Annual Parliaments and Universal Suffrage, 
not only reducible to practice, but better than 
the present practice— and one, which although 
he could name a better plan, was one of those 
plans which would answer the purposes of re- 
presentation. 

What then can Lord Grey mean by saying, as 
he did in the §peech before quoted, — " My opinions 
" on Parliameiitary Reform are already well known ^ 
^^ to them I still continue attache dy notwithstanding 
" ivhat I have said on some late occasions has been 
" represented as a renunciation of my former 
*^ opinions.''* 

I ask you, Lord Erskine, whether I have not 
already shown, beyond hope of cavil, that Lord 
Grey has renounced his former opinions ? When 
a member of the society of the Friends of the 
People, he was a Radical Reformer — his bill in 
1797 was for a Radical Reform. Now he says, 
a Reformer on moderate principles. He was then 

* Parliamentary Debates, May 6, 1793. 



183 

fordoing all at once — he is now f or being a Izvai/s 
gradual He then talked of Annual Parliaments 
and Universal Suffrage, as better than the present 
system, and as admissible, though he knew a 
better plan. He now calls Annual Parliaments 
and Universal Suffrage absurd, senseless, vision- 
ary, impracticable. 

He then would bring the people to the doors 
of Parliament to intimidate the members into 
Reform. He now calls the notion of the para- 
mount, indispensable necessity of Reform, false, 
mistakeriy dangerous, and mischievous. 

This is Apostacy — this is standing apart from 
his former opinions, or words have no meaning. 
It is idle for your Lordship to say that Lord Grey 
vi^iil again be found supporting Reform — at the 
happy, harmonious period which your Lordship 
fixes as the sole juncture when Reform can be 
claimed with justice or utility.* Perhaps he 
may — but even if he should turn out to be for 
Universal Suffrage hereafter, we shall have still 
been quite right in what we have said of his 
former conduct and expressed opinions. How 
could Lord Grey say his opinions on Reform 

* *' But (be the time at hand or distant) whenever petitions 
" for Reform shall approach Parliament, proceeding from the 
" harmonious wishes of the various classes and degrees, which 
" can alone constitute a nation, and which above ail nations 
" of the earth, binds together as one soul and body the inha- 
" bitants of Great Britain, I will venture to pledge my cha- 
" racter," &c. — Answer, p. 26. 



184 

were well known ? If he alluded to his old opi- 
nions, indeed, we find them as clear as words 
can make them in the declarations of the Friends 
of the People; but all that we can collect as to 
his present way of thinking, distinctly shows, 
that he no longer retains those old opinions. 

I wish, my Lord ! you had not put me upon 
this work. Lord Grey, strange as it appears to 
us, after the political faux pas, the slight slips 
of his Lordship's life, assumes, I understand, 
the fierce arrogance of insulted virtue.— He 
is, I should think, an irritable man, and is 
likely to act so much from immediate impulse, 
that even such a trifle as this pamphlet might 
justify, in his mind, a fresh attack on the Re- 
formers. 

Now his Lordship is one of those few Whigs 
whom I would rather have for us than against 
US; and if some forbearance from telling the 
truth would make him apostatize from his present 
principles, I, for one, should be highly delighted 
to see a man of his capacity and influence re- 
turn to his old principles. 

The memory of his Lordship's once decided 
character, when recalled by the occasional vi- 
gorous efforts which he now makes in defence of 
public liberty, is, I must own, more agreeable to 
my fancy than even the present perseverance of 
a dull man; and this I say with the thorough 
conviction, that, at present, the Reformers have 
no enemy so fatal to them as Lord Grey. There 



185 

is no accounting for tastes, and this is mine. — 
The oddity of the selection, and more than that, 
the arrogance of such a creature as myself, pre- 
tending even to approve of a Lord, will amuse, 
if it does not shock you ; but we are all men, 
my Lord, and — if the scum should ever unfor- 
tunately be uppermost — who knows? perhaps it 
may be as well to have even my vote. 

I have been seduced into this digression, by 
looking over (I have it now before me) Lord 
Grey*s speech on the French war, in 1815: a 
very noble piece of parliamentary rhetoric, 
surely; and this brings me just to say, in pass- 
ing, that if your Whigs had been a party, and 
had been a party pretending to any principles 
of union, you would all have opposed this war; 
but, on the contrary, I verily believe, that it 
was a Whig speech that gave the minister 
courage to go to war. I mean Mr. Grattan's. 
You voted for the war. What folly then is it 
to talk of party ! You never combine and act 
altogether upon any great national question. 
Never upon a point decisive of some fixed prin- 
ciple. A powerful muster can never be made, 
except upon some motion warily set out with 
exceptions and provisions,* contrived more for 

♦ In compliance with the bad men of the party. Lord Ar- 
chibald Hamilton, one of the best men of the party, on the 
debate on the Scotch Burghs, was obliged most solemnly to 
disavow any connexion between his petitions and Parliamen- 



186 



the sake of collecting votes than displaying 
opinions. And yet you talk of an organized 
opposition ; and have the assurance to say, that 
there is no sentiment more universal than that, 
'^ such an oppositiouy* even to the most justly po- 
pular administration y is a great security to good 
government.'^ I rather think, I am as good a 
judge of what sentiment is universal as your 
Lordship is; and, I say, that if such a senti- 
ment ever did prevail, it is now entirely exploded, 
except in those quarters where it will stick to 
the last, namely, amongst the members of this 
organized opposition themselves. Great security 
to good government I f it isapARCE; it is the main- 
stay of bad government. It may do very well, 
whilst the being amember of parliament, is as Mr. 

tary Reform. The whole struggle between the battahons on 
that debate (May 6) was to affix, and ward off, that odious 
and damnable suspicion. " I am against all innovation," said 
Lord Binning, " and this is neither more nor less than Par- 
liamentary Reform." (No ! no ! no ! from the opposition 
benches.) " I am as much against what is called Parliamen- 
tary Reform as any body," said Mr. Primrose, " but this is 
hot Reform. I am for the petitions." Mr. Wynne was against 
€very thing wild and visionary ; but he would vote for the 
committee, as it pledged him to nothing. Then came George 
Canning of Liwrpool ; he called this one of the " coarse," 
*' broad/* *' groixs" " tyrannical y^ ''insulting" "shapes" of Re- 
form ; and ended an " animated" speech, so The Times calls 
it, by comparing the said monster to a toad, and himself to 
an angel, arme«3 with the spear of truth. 
* Answer, p. 4. 



187 

W. Ward called it, in the warmth of admiration, 
"a profession,"* (pity he did not add, a lucra- 
tive profession) ; but in a true Commons* House, 
what we should have, would be, what you say 
would be of '^ no use to the people whatever ;** 
that is, " a desultory attendance of the honestest 
" and most enlightened men»**'f Here is a charm- 
ing eulogium on the present state of representa- 
tion, and brings me back naturally to the main 
question, as to the *' proscription'* an4 ^^ vilifica^ 
tiovH' of our apostate Reformers, by the radical 
Reformers. 

I have shewn how materially Lord Grey must 
have changed his opinions on the subject of Re^ 
form; for it is not an adequate confession to say, 
as his Lordship did, in 1810, that there had 
been " in subsequent times, some differences 
*' from his former professions j*' J but I do not 
think you can shew me any proscription or vi- 
lification of him by the Reformers. As we are 
no party, we are not answerable for individual 
attacks ; and in the present state of the contro- 
versy, I presume your Lordship would not think 
of making the Reformers, whose defeat you re- 
joice in, (that is, the Westminster Reformers,) 
answerable for Mr. Cobbett*s strictures on the 



* Speech, in 1817, on Sir Francis Burdett's motion on 
Reform. 

t Answer, p. 40. t Debates, June 10, 1810. 



188 

Whigs. In truth, the Whigs have lately been 
quoting the scripture of the '' Register," with 
much delight against the Westminster Reformers. 
Besides, Mr. Cobbett's pen has been in activity 
during the twelve years' trance^ so you can have 
alluded only to the body of men usually known 
by the name of the Westminster Committee. 
I protest then, that I am at a loss to know where 
to look for the " proscription and vilification" 
of these Whig persons of " ranki station^ and 
property ;^ nor do I know, with the exception 
of Lord Grey, to wdiom in particular you would 
allude. The coalition of 1806 certainly- con- 
vinced the people of England, that the struggles 
of party in parliament were struggles, not for 
principles, but for power ^ and that conviction 
v^ill be found in the proceedings of the Westmin- 
ster Reformers, but that is not proscribing and 
vilifying almost all persons of rank, station, and 
property; if it is proscribing and vilifying them, 
they should be proscribed and vilified 5 for it 
is a truth indelibly fixed in the public mind. 
— It is not at all surprising, that Lord Grey 
should have drawn no small share of the public 
odiuiA upon himself, since he took part with 
the Borough-mongers against the people of Eng- 
land, in the great question which was tried in 
the personof Sir Francis Burdett, in 1810. Then 
it was that his Lordship proclaimed, that he con- 
sidered the people should be suppressed in their 



189 

attempts' to act upon the prudence of thehouse, 
as readily as the unconstitutional invasions of 
the crown should be resisted. Then it was that 
the ardour of the citizen took in his eyes a de- 
praved direction, and was no longer to have any 
influence upon the deliberations of the senator.* 
Then it was that his Lordship chose to question 
the title of Sir F. Burdett to the claim of martyr- 
dom,-|- but he also was candid enough to confess, 
that the title had been allowed by the people. 
And if he is to be praised for confessing, that he 
would stand by the privileges of parliament, 
and what he thought his duty, at the risk of his 
popularity; it must at the same time not be made 
a matter of complaint, that he has incurred 
the penalty which he magnanimously professed 

* " And if the deliberations of parliament would be im- 
" peded by popular insult and commotion, why not as neces- 
" sary to suppress the civium ardor prava jubentium, as the 
" unconstitutional invasions of the crown on the freedom of 
" parliament." — Lord Grei/s speech, Parliamentary Debates, 
Lords, June 13, 1810. 

f " Sir F. Burdett says, that he is a martyr to the good old 
" cause, for which Sydney and Russell bled on the scaffold; 
" but Sydney and Russell did not fall martyrs to their resist- 
" ance to any stretch or undue exercise of the power or pri- 
*' vileges of parliament." — Speech, June 13, 1810. But, by 
his Lordship's leave, the good old cause was, and is, the cause 
of liberty ; and whether the tyranny emanates from a cabinet 
of courtiers, or an assembly of borough-mongers, resistance 
to it is alike meritorious, and will equally make a martyr. 



190 

himself to despise.* On that occasion his Lord- 
ship certainly pulled off the gloves, and he would 
have thought his universal defiance rather ridi- 
culous than glorious, if he had not roused a sin- 
gle adversary out of his v^hole world of oppo- 
nents. He had, indeed, a foretaste of some 
future antagonists from his friend Lord Stanhope, 
before he left the house, who at once told him 
what was then, and always will be, the vice of 
all Whig declamation, and what, I think, is the 
peculiar characteristic of Lord Grey's eloquence; 
he said, that as to the support to which Lord 
Grey would pledge the house for " the ancient 
and essential fights and privileges of parliament," 
this ^* he thought too indefinites his noble friend^ s 
definitions were not so precise as they might have 
been.''^ Lord Stanhope then said, that, a cer- 

♦ " I cannot but feel a deep regret, if I am deprived of my 
" popularity, by any misunderstanding of my views and ob- 
" jects on the part of the people; but it excites my indigna- 
" tion, if I am robbed of my popularity, by the basest mis- 
*' representations, and the vilest delusions practised by men, 
'f who, without any regard to truth, sacrifice every really vir- 
** tuous and patriotic object to the shouts of popular clamdur. 
« To obtain such a poptilarity requires neither virtue nor ta- 
" lents. Indeed, men without virtue or talents are the best 
" fitted to acquire such a popularity. Men who, as we have 
" seen in the present day, ^t themselves above all the deeen- 
« cies of private life, and abov^ all those courtesies which 
"'men, who really endeavour to do their duty, concede event 
*• to their adversaries." — Speech of Lord Grey, as abov^, 

t See Debates, as above. 



191 

tain supporter of the privileges of parliament 
" had broached doctrines which, if they were 
*^ well founded, it would be more tolerable to live 
*^ in Turkey than in any country where such 
" doctrines were countenanced." 

And this is a good place for observing a small 
slip in your Lordship's memory, about this very 
speech of Lord Grey's, in 1810. Your " An- 
swer"* positively denies the assertions of the 
Replyer, that *' this speech was an uncalled- 
for declaration against all Reform, and all Re- 
formers." I happen to have the report of Lord 
Erskine's speech upon the proposed address of 
Lord Grey, on this very occasion :— 

*^ He agreed with the noble earl (Stanhope) in 
" the opinion which he had formed of the just pri- 
*'* vileges of either house ^ beirig commensurate to the 
" necessity of the case, and being founded by that 
*^ necessity. He was sorry y that a motion on such 
*' a subject should be brought fonvard in a manner 
" that appeared to him to be hasty y and as if made 
" on the spur of the occasion. He must declare, 
" that he did not feel any of that alarm which was 
** entertained by many, of the dangerous mews of 
" those zvho were amongst the foremost in seeking 
^'^ for Reform, He did not believe there were any 
" considerable body of men in this country; he 
** was sure that he did not know any man who ap-^ 

* Answer, p. 19, 



192! 

^' peared to him to have any further object thaii to 
" obtain what to them appeared the ESSENCE and 
" Spirit of the Constitution. Many of these 
" men might he mistaken in their opinions; but 
" when it was recollected what an ardent spirit 
'"^ prevailed in the time of our forefathers, and how 
" much blood had then been shed in the defence of 
" what they conceived the liberties of the country, 
" men could hardly be condemned at present for 
" feeling a considerable degree of zeal and ardour 
" on such a subject.'^ 

So said Lord Erskine, in 1810. 
This is a noble and a just defence of all the 
radical Reformers; and it is a defence manifestly 
against Lord Grey, whose address you call hasty; 
is not that word as good as " uncalled-for V It 
was not an answer to Lord Liverpool, the only 
ministerial speaker before your Lordship, except 
as far as Lord Liverpool had expressed the 
" most entire satisfaction'*^ ^ at Lord Grey's sen- 
timents concerning the privileges of parliament. 
You sealed your opinion on this point by not 
dividing with Lord Grey. The Duke of Nor- 
folk, the Marquis of Douglass, and Lord Stan- 
hope, also refused to take part with the Parlia- 
ment against the People: they left the house 
with your Lordship. How then can you be 
astonished if the radical Reformers occasionally 

* Debates, 1810. June 13, as above. 



193 

recollect the decisive line taken against them, 
by Lord Grey, in the imprisonment of Sir F. 
Burdett ? It did not happen so long ago ; you 
thought it hasty at the time ; and, although you 
now choose to defend him for attacking ^^ all 
such Reformers'' as the Replyer,* yet at the 
time, I say, you thought there was not a single 
dangerous Reformer, not a single man amongst 
them who appeared to have any " further ob- 
ject" than obtaining what he thought " the 
essence and spirit of the constitution.** 

Your Lordship had forgot you differed from 
Lord Grey on that momentous question; but 
we have not forgot it: we are grateful for your 
defence of us then, and are glad to set it off 
against your attack on us now. The incon- 
sistency, indeed, is not a little puzzling; but I 
have been accustomed to it, by looking over 
Whig speeches, and by attempting, if possible, 
to collect together any knot of men, however 
small, acting upon any single principle however 
indefinite, to whom may be applied upon the 
slightest pretext, the modest and favourite title 
of the great body of the Whigs of England. 

In the question of Reform, it is " confusion 
worse confounded;" for here, in this pamphlet 



♦ " He spoke only against all such Reformers as I have al- 
" luded to, and (if I may judge from your pamphlet) against 
" all such Reformers as yourself." — Answer, p. 19. 

O 



194 

of your's, I can quote excellent premises for 
quite contrary conclusions. 

In page 18 you declare, that you and Lord 
Grey have been disappointed, by the radical 
Reformers, from *' effecting the Reform retom- 
" mended by the Friends of the People.'' 

In pages 29, 30, and 31, you give us dis- 
tinctly to understand, that you have *' rejected, 
" upon maturer reflection,'' what is certainly 
the vi'hole of the plan of radical Reform, recom- 
mended by the Friends of the People. If so, the 
radical Reformers have not prevented you from 
effecting this plan. You are not for this plan 
yourself. 

In page 17 you are angry not to be thought 
an advocate for a general change in the Repre- 
sentation. In page 31 you tell us, that an addi- 
tion to the county representation, and to that of 
populous towns, is the specific Reform you vt^ould 
adopt. You do not seem to understand the 
subject; and what with attacking those with 
whom you used to agree, and defending those 
with whom you used to differ, you have so be- 
puzzled your argument, that you forget that 
you have one indispensable duty to perform, be- 
fore you either attack or defend others, namely, 
to reconcile yourself with yourself. 

You should not have forgotten, that the 
reason which you have given for the change of 
the question as to Reforni — that is, the proscrip- 



195 

(ion and vilification of the former aiispiciators of 
that claim, did not operate with you at all in 
1810, at which period you did not see the dan- 
ger you now see from any Reformers ; and yet 
that, separation of the people and the Whigs had 
evidently commenced before 1810. You should 
have recollected, that in hinting at the patriotism 
of the Westminster Reformers starting up after 
a twelve year s^ trance^ you must doubtless mean 
to say, that they have not done any thing, either 
good or bad, since the election of 1807 — what 
then in their conduct can have changed your 
opinion since 1810? — not the elections in 1818 
or 1819; because the defence which you make 
for the Whigs refers to their conduct before that 
period, for which conduct you give the excuse, 
that before that period they were proscribed and 
vilified, 

I have before said this could be no excuse, 
were it even true; but it is not true. Your 
Lordship's friends are apt to exclaim against the 
slightest remonstrance, against the plainest ex- 
position of a sober truth, as if it were the most 
injurious reviling of rancour and ingratitude. 
As a proof of this, I must refer you to the out- 
cry raised against the Report of the Westminster 
Committee; which, though it does not enter into 
your Lordship's proofs of proscription and vilifica- 
tion, was doubtless considered in that light by your 



196 

friends. Now the strongest phrases in that report 
are the two following, the first of which succeeds 
the quotation from Mr. Grey*s speech of 1794, 
when he denounced Mr. Pitt as an Apostate: — 
" Nothing can be more severe than the indigna- 
" tion so properly expressed by Mr. Grey against 
*^ those who had apostatized from the cause of 
" Reform : and nothing can bring public men 
" into contempt so completely, as such unprin- 
*' cipled and shameless apostacy. When, there- 
^^ fore, Mr. Grey, and the whole of his party, 
"joined with the Grenvillites, the unrelenting 
" persecutors of Reform, they justly excited the 
" contempt of the people.** The second is : — 
" The feelings excited by the Electors of West- 
" minster mainly contributed to expose, still 
" further, the enormous iniquities of both the 
" factions.'* 

This is expressing, and strongly too, an opi- 
nion of the coalition in 1806; but it is not per- 
sonal proscription and vilification. I affirm, 
that there is much more of personal proscription 
and vilification to be found in what I have 
quoted from Lord Grey*s speech in 1810, and 
much stronger general language in the denun- 
ciations of his late Newcastle speech. 

However, it was quite enough to make the 
Whigs resolve upon running every risk of loss of 
character, and to prove that they were not apos- 



197 

tates from Reform, by opposing the Reformers 
in Westminster. I have only slightly quoted 
Mr. Lambton's speech, nor would I now refer to it, 
had he not many years left him to repent : but as 
the Whigs were audacious enough to say, that 
the Reformers struck the first blow at the late 
election, I must put down the codicil which the 
member for Durham added to his father-in-law's 
will against us.* 

Mr. Lambton then told us we " had been 
bor?ie aloft by the tide of popular commotiorH^ — ^' been 
lifted above the sphere to zvhich we had been con- 
demned by our natural insignificance, and to which 
we must noiv return,'*' He said, " these Radical Re- 
formers, these advocates of Annual Parliaments 
and Universal Suffrage, (as if the phrases were 
synonymous) with liberty in their mouths'' — " had 
contributed to the increase of slavery more" than " the 
united power of corruption and despotism' ' He told 
us we " could only rise by tumult and riot to the un- 
natural elevation that" we " sought." He called us 
" brawling, ignorant, but mischievous quacks," with 
whom " the true people of England held no commu- 
nion" He said that our " doctrines and views xoere 

* See the Newcastle Chronicle for Jan. 9, 1819. Mr. 
Lambton, by the word " demagogues" seems to have had some 
individuals in his eye : but he must know that, as he named 
nobody, the ofFence was against the whole body of Radical 
Reformers. 



198 

exposed to universal derision and abhorrence i^ and 
ended by " tearing away the veil which concealed 
the deformity of our features^ whichy^ he added, 
^^ now inspire nothhig hut disgust^ Now, I dare say, 
that Mr. Lambton thought that we, the Radical 
Reformers in Westminster, would be too happy 
to be dismissed so quietly, and would 

" Seek us out dishonourable graves." 

But, oh ! the unquenchable insolence of " na- 
turally insignijicanf' souls ! we published the " RE- 
PORT OF THE Committee." The Whigs cried 
out at the Election, " why did not the Reformers 
make their complaint before?" We might say 
— " why did not Lord Grey and Mr. Lambton 
make their attack before ?'* The Newcastle 
Chronicle arrived with the excommunication 
of the Reformers on January 12. The Report 
was prepared in the course of the subsequent 
fortnight: but it could not be read until the 
last general meeting. After this, we must hear 
no more of the first attack coming from the 
Reformers on the late occasion. On the Thurs- 
day following Sir Samuel Romilly's death ap- 
peared a paragraph in the Chronicle, calling the 
friends of government and the Reformers in 
Westminster the " two extreme factions i^ and 
shortly before the meeting of Parliament, ap- 
peared a series of essays (stupid enough to be 



199 

sure) against the Radical Reformers. The Re- 
port, in point of time, was only a Reply, The 
Whigs think they are to hit out at us like boxers 
against a wall, to put themselves in wind. If we 
retort, they cry out, like little parlour-boarders, 
that they "don't make hitting in the face,'' it 
bloodies their clean gentlemanly cheeks and fine 
shirts. But, let them leave us alone, then; for I 
assure your Lordship, that most of us are like 
myself, who have no taste whatever for that 
kind of battle : — 

" Ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum.^' 

Your Lordship cannot expect that the same 
sort of decent deference and respect can be shown 
by the people at large towards public men, as 
you are accustomed to pay them. The people 
feel acutely every thing that affects their inte- 
rests; and, as all their statesmen invariably talk 
of those interests as the sole object in their view, 
they must be allowed, now and then, some ex- 
pressions of feeling when they think themselves 
neglected or betrayed — much more when they 
are manifestly mocked at and insulted. When 
their politicians make a speech against their way 
of thinking, they don't stand staring, as your 
Lordship did at Lords Grey and Grenville when 
they opposed the Corn Bill, " absorbed in the 



200 

** contemplation of how fearfulh) and wonderfully 
" both in mind and body, we are made.*'* 

Good, my Lord, we are not quite come to 
that ; we have something else to do than to make 
moral reflections upon the composition of those 
who are to make laws for us — we have to think 
only of the composition of the laws themselves, 
which indeed, generally seem to be made also in 
fear and wonder : fear, at some imaginary evil ; 
and wonder, that any body should be so vile as 
to object to them. 

It would not be decorous in you to give way 
to your real feelings, when you have them — ^you 
would discompose the company and spoil the 
play — ^you are one of the actors. But I say 
again, as I said before, the sincere applause and 
the cordial hissing must come from where the 
money comes, from the vile people below. 

You wish to be kings of the dictionary, and to 
keep even the coarse language of our vernacular 
for your own use : for I do not find it ever so 
much objected to as when it comes from those 
from whom it ought to have been expected more 
than others — the people. It must be confessed, 
that we soar with very weak wings indeed, when 
we attempt to reach the Billinsgate flights of the 

* Answer, p. 25. Mr. Ricardo in this respect was as fear- 
fully and wonderfully made as these two Lords— he wrote 
against the. Corn Bill. 



201 

House of Commons' orators; and yet, our efforts 
are criminal — theirs are all in course. The rea- 
son perhaps, is, that when we complain, we mean 
something — when a parliamentary talker is rude, 
he means nothing — It is only a part of the FARCE, 
not worth being angry at; besides, it is much 
more easy to resent an insult than to redress a 
wrong. 

Whatever may be the cause, I repeat, that I 
could pick out from Whig attacks on the people, 
expressions much stronger than any to be found 
in popular denunciations of any party. — Even 
your Lordship's Answer* abounds in phrases of 

♦ The diverting nature of the Reply, and the jolly habits of 
the Replyer, have been before noticed — next come a disgusting 
want of temper — an indecent contempt of fact, p. 8. Calumnies 
at a tavern meeting, (that is, Mr. Hobhouse's speech) — deserted 
zwA slandered, p. 13. Gross and ivilful misrepresentation, p. 16. 
Gross and ivilfid misrepresentation, p. 17. Coarse, illiberal, 
and unfounded, p. 19. ■ Grossest and most palpable misconstruc- 
tion, p. 20. Slanderously attempted, p. 27. You must have 
been quite conscious that you were grossly misrepresenting me — 
" and you must have introduced the ivord they to express that 
I had so written, well knowing that I had not," p. 37. 
" Disgusting departure from every principle of justice," p. 39. 
Coarse and vulgar remarks — senseless tirade, p. 40. Your pur- 
pose to defame, p. 41. An inflamed attach, more fit to be addressed 
to a mob, &c. p. 43. In p. 44, the Replyer is a defamer, a 
dunce, a reptile, and a mummy; and the Answerer is Mr. Pope, 
who preserves him, quite against rule, in the museum ofhisivit 
— next comes — your own dark colours — falsely representing:, p. 
47 . Calumnious complaints-^you ought to be considered as a libel- 

P 



202 

scorn, contempt, and derision of your corres- 
pondent; such as, if used originally by me, 
would have subjected me to every opprobrious 
epithet. 

Your Lordship seems, in the true style, most 
hurt at being charged with indecorum ; but in 
looking over your Pamphlet, I find words, which 
in me would not be so very decorous. Let 
us, however, look at this indecorum — it is, I 
find, the ^^ indecorum of self-applause," which 
most shocks you as a charge against you. But 
how do you rebut this charge ? — by saying that 
it is notorious, you became suspected of being 
the author of the Defence of the Whigs, because 
you were not praised more than twice in that 
defence, and that praise was only incidentally 
given ! ! 1* 

ler, p. 51. Indecent language, p. 63. Most contemptible, p. 63, 
The same unjust and peevish spirit which so disgustingly distin- 
guishes almost every sentence you have written, p. 8. AH which 
weapons of oratory are brought up in the rear by an appro- 
priate metaphor, which serves the triple purpose of a joke, a 
reproof, and a defence of the Whig tax on private breweries. 
" But your bile, nevertheless, which, for twelve years together, 
" has been fermenting in your private brewery, has at last so 
"publicly boiled over, that under the general law you are liable 
" to be taxed," p. 70. Alas, poor Whiggery ! to be left to 
such a defender. Did I not say that Lord Grimstone had got 
a dangerous rival ? 

* " It is notorious I became suspected of being the author, 
*' because, amidst the necessity of stating several important 



203 

If I were to say, as you do of a passage in the 
Reply, that " I was never more diverted in my 
life" than when I read this — should not I be 
hooted down as one who liad indecently exposed 
the acknowledged failings of a man, arrived at 
that time of life when failings are apt to predo- 
minate over good qualities ? Would not every 
decent, demure Whig creature cry out — so, you 
attack a poor old fellow for his vanity ? — oh ! for 
shame ! 

I know very well what will be said, if any 
thing is said, of this letter to you. I know that 
the author will be set down as a man without 
any taste, or sense of shame — as a gross, malig- 
nant, ignorant, presumptuous libeller of all the 
venerable names that were ever " great to little 
meny But I shall expect some little forbearance 
from your Lordship, because, a great deal of 
what I write is copied from the pure repositories 
of Whig oratory; and mean though I am, I 
must still think myself not wholly so, since my 
composition has been, in a great measure, quick- 
ened by the breath of Whig nostrils — or, if that 
shall be no inducement to moderation, because 
I have forborn to make the most of what you say 
about the " indecorum of self-applause," as well 

" events, in which I had been personally active, I blended 
" myself with the opposition, without the least allusion to a^y 
" merit of my own," &c. &c. — Aiuwev, p. 8. 



' t04 

as to comment upon some twenty quibbles which 
I marked down on first reading your Answer. 

And so, my Lord, I conclude these " More 
Last Words" of mine, by praying, that you will 
leave the abuse of the Electors of Westminster 
to those in whose mouths it is graceful — and 
do, if you can, do persuade some persons of 
rank, station, and character, once more to 
" auspiciate" the cause of Reform, 



THE END. 



John M'Creery, Primer, 
Black-Horse-Court, London. 















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